Open Your Eyes
by April7739
Summary: (Modern AU) Seven times Clarke interrupted Bellamy's sleep, and one time he didn't want to sleep at all.
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1: Tired_

Sleep was very important to Bellamy Blake. It always had been. His mom used to tell him he'd been a "miracle child" because he'd sleep through the night, even as a baby. In his first days home from the hospital, he hadn't caused a ruckus, hadn't kept his mom up at all hours, which was probably a good thing, since she'd been a single mom and needed as much sleep as she could manage. Even when he'd been a toddler who was supposed to be going through that terrible two's stage, he'd just bypassed it or something and always slept like an angel. This whole "miracle child" label usually elicited a grunt of derision and an exasperated eye roll out of his little sister, Octavia, because she had most definitely _not_ been a miracle child, and their mother often lamented all the sleep she'd lost with her.

This was all just proof, as he often told Octavia, that even as an infant, even as a toddler, he was perfect.

Throughout childhood, he'd been a frequent napper, and even in high school, he never lacked for sleeping. Nor did he lack for sleeping _with_ beautiful girls, but that was more exertion than it was exhaustion. All in all, high school had been a piece of cake for Bellamy. Even his "hard" classes hadn't been that hard, and most, like history and literature, had come easily to him. He had managed to keep a 4.0 GPA in addition to playing football, wrestling, and dating/doing multiple cheerleaders at once. Usually he slept while the girls snuck out his window.

But then college came around, and suddenly, sleep became harder to come by. Despite his best efforts to doze off the way he used to, Bellamy just couldn't do anything about it as his precious eight hours a night dwindled down to six, then five, then four. _Four_ lousy hours of sleep. Finally, around finals week, when he was only managing about three hours of precious rest, Bellamy gave in to his own desperation and picked up a boat-load of Tylenol PM at his university's health center, hoping it would knock him out for the night.

It didn't work.

The problem was, college was _hard_. Way more difficult than he'd ever imagined it would be. For the first time in his life, he wasn't the smartest one in all his classes, wasn't acing all his tests with ease. Since he'd been that perfect miracle child Octavia could only dream of being, he'd never actually had to study to do well back in high school. Now, though, he did, and he . . . well, he really just didn't know how.

Try as he might, he couldn't shut his mind off, couldn't shut the stress out. So he pulled some all-nighters studying for his finals, hoping he could still salvage a 3.5 out of the semester.

When finals were over and he was officially on Christmas break—or "winter break," whatever the PC term was—he felt relieved as hell. No more endless hours of studying, no more cramped dorm room, no more annoying roommate Murphy who had phone sex with his across-the-country girlfriend _every_ night at _exactly_ 10:00. Bellamy high-tailed it home, hoping to recapture some simplicity and some sanity to go along with it. He'd play some board games with Octavia—kick her ass at those board games, of course. He'd watch documentaries with his mother and point out any inaccuracies, because there were _always_ inaccuracies. Maybe he'd even hook up with Roma down the street. She was the once beautiful—possibly still hot—former varsity cheerleader who'd deflowered him after he'd scored his first touchdown ever in a freshmen football game.

Hell yeah, _Roma_. She was _definitely_ on his to-do list.

At the top of that list, though, was one simple thing: sleep. He wanted to fling himself into his old room and crash-land on his old bed with the squeaky bedsprings that had been squeaky ever since Roma had gotten a hold of him. And he wanted to sleep for hours. More than that, actually. A day. He wanted to sleep for an entire fucking day.

He was _so close_ to doing just that, lying on his side with his eyes shut, just starting to drift off, when he heard it, the worst sound ever: girly voices.

 _No, no, no,_ he thought, burying his face in his pillow as the voices turned into giggles. Octavia had always been more of a tomboy growing up, but now that she was a teenager, that seemed to be changing. Bellamy faintly recognized the voice of Clarke Griffin, the girl who used to live down the street before she moved away a couple years ago. There had been a time when she had been the only girl to be Octavia's friend, because most other girls were rightfully intimidated by Octavia. What was she doing over at his house now?

He had to be honest, he didn't even care.

Unfortunately for him, the door to his room swung open while he was trying to block everything out. He groaned without even lifting his head.

"Whoa," a decidedly not-Octavia voice said. "Bellamy?"

He didn't respond, nor did he even glance up at the girl he used to babysit.

"You look awful."

 _That_ , though . . . that was just an insult. And not a true one. Rolling over, propped against a vast array of pillows that still had Spiderman pillowcases on them—dude was a hero. Shut up, okay?—he blinked his eyes open and took in the sight of Clarke Griffin. She still looked young, but not as young as he remembered. She wasn't wearing as much makeup as Octavia currently insisted on caking onto her face, but . . . well, she wasn't wearing the right bra, either. Puberty had _definitely_ hit little Clarke Griffin, and that made it kind of awkward to just lay there while she stared at him curiously.

"What do you want?" he grumbled impatiently.

She rolled her eyes and responded sarcastically, "Nice to see you, too, Bellamy."

He smirked. "I'm nice to see."

She closed the door, then, which made him fear she planned on staying. Jutting her hip out to the side, one hand on her waist, she asked, "Do you remember me?"

"Of course I remember you," he muttered, recalling the time she'd cried when he refused to play Barbies with her. "Back then, you were eight and annoying. Now you're thirteen and annoying."

"Fourteen," she corrected swiftly. "My parents and I just moved back to Arkadia last week. I'm in high school now. With your sister."

"Great." He yawned, uninterested. So O's childhood bestie had moved back to town. Fascinating. The pornographic Roma dreams he was missing out on right now were a hell of a lot _more_ interesting.

"I'm hanging out with her today," Clarke continued on, stating the obvious. "Well, your mom's lecturing her about her outfit right now, which is why I came in here. But later tonight, we're going to a concert."

He didn't ask what concert. Probably Justin Bieber or something. Did girls still like Justin Bieber? Whatever. Didn't matter.

Frowning, she pulled up his computer chair next to his bed and sat down while he yawned. "You look tired," she remarked.

"Well, what do you expect?" he spat out, irritated. Sitting up more, he lamented, "I'm an over-worked, over-stressed, over-zealous college student. I get tired."

"What's that?" she asked, cocking her blonde little head to the side inquisitively.

"What, over-zealous?"

She nodded.

Never one to pass up an opportunity for vocabulary enrichment, (not even when he felt like he could Rip Van Winkle his way through the next seven semesters), Bellamy explained, "It's like when you're over-eager. Or high-strung or something."

"Oh, that's _definitely_ you," she said.

"Right, so if you could just . . . leave my room right about now . . ." He gestured grandly towards the closed door.

Clarke, however, didn't seem to catch the hint. Either that or she just ignored it completely. "What's college like?" she asked. "Is it better than high school?"

Before he could even open his mouth to say anything, she rambled on.

"Because I hear it's better. But I actually really like high school so far. It's easy. And the older guys are more mature."

He felt his skin prickle when she said that, mainly because . . . well, he'd shared a locker room with some of those "older guys" just last year. They only had one thing on their minds, and chances were, when they looked at pretty little Clarke here, with her low-cut top and unsupportive bra, they probably made bets about who would nail her first. Octavia was different. They knew not to lay a hand on her because of him. Plus, she had a black belt and could totally kick all of their asses. Clarke didn't have that, nor did she have an overprotective big brother looking out for her as she navigated the turbulent waters of her own adolescence.

"Be careful," he warned her, not sure if she even heard him.

"Wells is the only mature guy in our grade," she went on, not even looking at him now. "Well, and Monty, but apparently he and Harper have been together _forever_ , so there's no hope there." She sighed dramatically, as if she were in a soap opera. "So it's pretty much just Wells. He likes me. But I don't like him. Not like _that_ anyway."

"Like _that_ , huh?" he mimicked teasingly. God, freshman year relationships were so stupid. He'd kind of forgotten.

"No. I like Finn, though," she told him. "Finn's pretty cool."

"So date Finn then," he suggested, yawning and rubbing his eyes. "I don't care."

"It's not that simple," she claimed. "Octavia likes him, too. Actually, Octavia kind of likes _every_ boy."

Well, well, well . . . _that_ certainly got his big brother spider sense tingling. " _Every_ boy?" he echoed, concerned. It was fine if she liked playing in the mud with them down at the crick, but if she liked them like _that_ , then that was cause for alarm.

"Well, just the hot, athletic ones," Clarke clarified.

"Oh, great." Those were the worst kind.

"And they all like her."

 _Fuck my life,_ he thought dramatically, sitting up straighter. So much for this fucking nap. That wasn't happening now. "Tell me more," he urged Clarke, and she didn't need to be told twice.

Clarke crawled up onto the side of his bed, which was a little weird, but he was fully clothed and everything, so he let it pass. She gossiped like any ninth grade girl could and would when given the chance. Most of it was uninteresting, but some of it was oddly compelling. It distracted him from the very real, very academic stress of his own life. She told him more about Finn, who seemed like a tool, and Miller, who was probably gay but supposedly oh-so-cute. And then there was Jasper, who apparently had written Octavia a song for Christmas proclaiming his love for her. Bellamy listened intently, realizing for the first time in months just how out of touch with his sister's life he was. He was supposed to have been a better big brother than this. He'd always tried to be.

The conversation shifted at points to random things, like how Clarke and Octavia used to try to sneak off while he babysat them, or how Clarke had once spilled that grape juice on their brand new white carpet during her first sleepover at their house. Bellamy had taken the fall for her then, and holy shit, his mom had been pissed. But nowadays, she was over it, and a thrift-store rug covered up that slightly purple-ish patch of carpet in the middle of their living room.

Bellamy wasn't sure how long they sat there talking, but it definitely seemed like twenty minutes, at least. Octavia came into the room midway through their very serious, not at all trivial debate about gummy bears versus gummy worms, and a confused expression swept over her face. "What the fuck?" she swore. "Why are you . . . in bed with my brother?"

"O . . ." He shot her an annoyed look, because he didn't want her insinuating that anything creepy had been going on.

"I'm just hanging out with him," Clarke replied innocently.

Octavia still looked confused. "And again I ask, why?"

"Because I'm awesome," Bellamy boasted.

"I was bored," Clarke replied flippantly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She scampered towards the door eagerly and asked, "Do we still get to go to the concert?"

"Yeah, I just have to 'cover up,'" Octavia said, using air quotes to illustrate her annoyance. "Whatever. Let's go finish getting ready."

"Okay!" The two young girls scurried out of his room and down the hall to Octavia's, and Bellamy found himself surrounded by silence again. No gossip, no high school melodrama. Just him and his squeaky mattress, which he moved around on to get comfortable and settled again.

"Bellamy."

He looked up and found Clarke poking her head back into his room.

She smiled sympathetically. "Sorry I woke you up." And then she was gone again, and the sounds of squeals and giggles from Octavia's room soon rose up. Along with Justin Bieber music.

So it _was_ Bieber after all.

Bellamy turned back over onto his side, shutting his eyes once again. He'd have to check back in with Clarke about Octavia and all these boys again before Christmas break was over. Plus, for a fourteen year old girl . . . she hadn't been horrible company.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2: Sleepy_

Even though he could have taken classes over the summer, Bellamy happily passed on that option. Nope, screw classes. He needed a break, a vacation, some time off.

His plan was to work at the Arkadia historical museum during the day, then hang out with his old friends from high school at night. He did that for about two nights until it got very, _very_ old. His friends just didn't hold his interest anymore, not that they'd ever been particularly interesting to being with. All they seemed to care about was going out and partying, getting wasted like they were still in high school. Bellamy knew a summer with them would quickly turn into a summer as their designated driver. No thanks.

On his third night of summer vacation, he offered to hang out with Octavia, who used to _love_ hanging out with him. But apparently now she was too cool for that or something, because all she said was, "Can't. Clarke and I have plans."

It didn't take much big brother detective work to figure out what exactly those plans were. Clarke and Octavia thought they were being slick, heading out to the movies for a date with two boys in their grade. (For the record, Octavia's phone had just be lying _right there_ on the counter, the texts between her and Clarke on full display. He couldn't be faulted for snooping and telling their mother about what he saw.)

Apparently the plan had been to head over to Clarke's house for a sleepover on a night when, conveniently, both Clarke's parents were out at a charity event for the hospital. Then the boys were gonna come pick them up and drive them out to the theater. Or maybe they would have rented something and just stayed in to watch it.

Baby sophomores on a double date in a home without supervision? Now that was a disturbing thought.

Well, _whatever_ , because none of that was happening now. Not on Bellamy's watch.

Their mother got mad at Octavia and grounded her for two weeks. Octavia hurled her "I hate you" insults at Bellamy more than once, but he just shrugged unapologetically. Because he wasn't sorry. She was his sister, his responsibility.

Clarke must have been too intimidated to go on a date without Octavia there with her, because as Bellamy soon found out, she cancelled her plans for the night, too. That was just fine with him.

The first week of Octavia's grounding was rough— _much_ silent treatment—which led Bellamy's mom to ask him what to do about this "boy situation."

As much as Bellamy didn't enjoy the thought of his sister dating, he'd always known it was inevitable. Like him, she'd hit the Blake genetic jackpot, so the offers for dates would roll in all throughout high school. And Octavia was far too rebellious to adhere to this grounding punishment much longer. If they didn't let her go out on a date, she'd just sneak out one of these days. And that would be even worse.

"I'll chaperone," he reluctantly volunteered one night as he helped his mother do the dishes. "I can drive 'em to the movies and keep an eye on things while we're there."

"Are you sure?" his mother asked.

"Yeah." Now that he found his high school friends boring, it wasn't like he had anything better to do.

When Octavia found out she could still go on a date, she immediately called Clarke, and an hour later, it was all set up. The two boys from the first failed double date scheme were seemingly still interested, and Clarke and Octavia were most _definitely_ still interested. And that was how Bellamy found himself spending a perfectly good Friday night out at the movie theater with four soon-to-be sophomores who were little more than ticking teenage time bombs at this point.

Octavia's date was this long-haired kid named Ilian, and Bellamy made him ride up front in the passenger's seat. The poor fool didn't seem to know what his name meant any more than Bellamy did. When Bellamy asked him about it on the drive to the theater, Octavia snapped, "Oh, shut up, Bell. Your name's the name of a porn site."

"A _gay_ porn site," Clarke chimed in from the backseat.

Bellamy made a face, glancing at her in his rearview mirror. "How do you know that?"

"I Googled it," she replied.

"My name or the porn site?"

"Both." She shrugged unabashedly and then returned her attention to _her_ date, who was yet _another_ long-haired kid: Finn, the one Clarke had told him about back at Christmas. Bellamy was . . . decidedly unimpressed with Finn. His hair covered his eyes too much, and he spent more time looking at his phone than at Clarke. See, Ilian, at least . . . weird name, but the guy was _clearly_ smitten with Octavia. He got tongue-tied around her. He blushed. He complimented her dress—which Bellamy had made her put a jacket over. Finn, on the other hand, _occasionally_ smiled at Clarke, but she did most of the talking and didn't seem to mind when an uninterested, "Yeah," or "Hmm," was all she got in response. And he didn't even tell her she looked nice or anything. But she did look nice. She did.

Bellamy pulled up to a stoplight and rolled his eyes in annoyance as he watched them in the rearview mirror. What the hell was Clarke doing with this tool?

When they got inside the movie theater, it only got more infuriating; but it surprised the hell out of Bellamy that his sister's date wasn't the one pissing him off. No, with Octavia and Ilian, it was all relatively innocent, harmless. They split the cost of their popcorn and flirted while they critiqued the movie trailers. But Finn started to get smarmy. He made Clarke pay for their extra-large, extra buttery popcorn herself, and once the movie started, he did that whole douchebag move where he pretended to yawn, then stretched his arm out to the side to wrap around her shoulders. Bellamy knew that move well. He'd used that move before.

And it didn't help that the movie itself was a giant piece of crap. Adam Sandler _and_ Owen Wilson together on screen? Who picked this shit? Probably dumbass Finn. It had way too much stupid humor and not enough substance.

By the time two of the characters started having a farting contest, Bellamy was completely checked out. He felt himself nodding off, powerless to stop it. Even though he knew he needed to be the vigilant chaperone who monitored these walking hormones, he felt his head tilting to the side, eyes shutting, mouth gradually falling open.

Sometimes this happened. He'd enter into a very light sleep, almost as if he were just skimming the surface of real, true rest. When this happened, he could actually hear himself snoring, which was embarrassing, but it was like he was paralyzed and couldn't move to wake himself up and put a stop to it.

He started having a stupid dream, which was probably the result of the stupid moving seeping into his subconscious. As much as he wanted to wake up, he just kept dozing.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been out of it when a hand shook his shoulder and woke him up. He squinted his eyes against what was no longer a darkened movie theater. The lights were back on, and the credits were just getting done rolling. The whole theater had emptied out, except for him and . . . he glanced up to see Clarke standing next to him, looking down at him impatiently.

"What the hell?" he mumbled tiredly.

"You fell asleep," she stated simply. "God, Bellamy, I swear, you're like a little old man sometimes."

"Just 'cause I fell asleep?" He yawned and glanced at the empty seat to his right, immediately on edge. "Where's Octavia?"

"She's with Ilian," Clarke replied.

He felt his eyes bulge in alarm.

"Relax," Clarke said, sitting down against next to him. "They're playing pinball out front. They didn't wanna wait for you to wake up."

He rubbed his eyes, yawning again. "I wasn't even asleep that long."

She gave him a look. "You snored through half the movie."

"Well, it was a stupid movie."

"Finn chose it."

"Well, that explains it." He shook his head in disgust. That little idiot had nothing going for him. Why Clarke was even wasting her time on him was a mystery.

"What?" she said challenging, crossing her arms over her chest. "You don't like Finn?"

Shrugging bluntly, he replied, "Not really."

"Why not?"

He grunted. "Why would I? He's a loser. He barely even paid attention to you. Don't you see that?"

"Oh, and I'm sure you were just Prince Charming back in high school," she said sarcastically. "Octavia told me you dated, like, three girls at once."

"Four," he corrected. (Hell, senior year prom night had been _interesting_ , and he could definitely never go back to that hotel where he and the girls had spent post-prom ever again.) Raking one hand through the mop of hair on his head, he acknowledged, "Yeah, I was kind of a jerk sometimes. I'll admit it. But that's how I know Finn's a jerk, too."

Shaking her head stubbornly, she said, "You don't even know him."

"I know he's not here right now," Bellamy said, gesturing around the empty movie theater. "So where is he?"

Clarke frowned momentarily, but just as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished again. "He had to leave," she said softly.

"In the middle of your date?" Nice.

"Well, he didn't _want_ to leave."

"But he did." Bellamy shrugged, hoping he was making his point loud and clear. "I may have had four girlfriends back in the day, but I never ditched any of 'em during a date."

"He didn't ditch me," Clarke argued. "He just had to go."

"Where?" Oh, he was _really_ eager to hear the answer to this one. What lie had this kid fed to her?

"Something about meeting up with a friend."

"A girlfriend?" he guessed.

"No." She glared at him, and he realized he'd actually upset her. Good. Clarke was a good girl, not as annoying as he'd once assumed she'd grow up to be. She deserved better than this tool.

"God, what's your problem, Bellamy?" she demanded shrilly.

"I'm just trying to look out for you."

She narrowed her eyes at him angrily. "You do remember you're _Octavia's_ chaperone and not mine, don't you?"

"No, this isn't about chaperoning," he argued, angling himself towards her. "I'm just . . ." He rubbed his forehead wearily, wishing now that he could just go back to that stupid dream he'd been having. "Clarke. I don't wanna see you get caught up in something you're not ready for."

"What makes you so sure I'm not ready?"

"You're still young and . . ." He wracked his brain for the right word, coming up with only, "naïve," which wasn't the right word.

Clarke stared daggers at him. "So you think I'm just an idiot?"

"No." He felt himself growing evermore flustered as the conversation worsened. "I know you're smart. But there's a difference between being book smart and street smart. Street smart people know about all the losers out there."

"Oh, trust me," she said, "I know some losers, too." Her blue eyes bore into his, and the insinuation was clear: She knew losers. She knew him.

He didn't even get the chance to explain himself further, or to apologize for offending her. She sprung up from her seat and high-tailed it out of the theater, leaving him alone there, facing the prospect of a very awkward drive home. She probably didn't even want to look at him, let alone be in a car with him.

He really hadn't meant to upset her.

Sighing heavily, he groaned and got up, knowing he needed to go find his sister and Ilian. He was, after all, as Clarke had pointed out, _their_ chaperone and not hers.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3: Worn Out_

Sex really zapped Bellamy's energy. Or, at least it did when it was _good_ sex. The sex with Roma was far from as great as he recalled—hell, he'd been a fourteen year-old virgin back then. Of course he remembered it as one of the greatest experiences of his twenty years of life—but it was still pretty good. Roma had had a kid last year, so she wasn't quite as in shape as she used to be, but Bellamy didn't mind. It just gave him a little something extra to hold onto while he was . . . you know. And Roma wasn't together with the baby's father anymore, so she totally had that whole stressed out single mom thing going on, and . . . well, he was more than happy to be her stress relief while he was home for another summer.

He was in the middle of a deep sleep, his arm loosely wrapped around her, when his phone rang. It took him a moment to even register what he was hearing, because he was just _so_ out of it. He groaned and shifted around a bit, and when Roma grumbled, "Just answer it," he disentangled himself from her and sat up. It kept ringing as he searched his nightstand for it, unable to see anything in the dark. He accidentally knocked his glasses down onto the floor and mumbled, "Shit," when he couldn't find what he was looking for. He bent down over the side of the bed, located his discarded jeans shoved halfway underneath the bed, and dug around the pockets until he finally found his phone.

"Yeah?" he answered impatiently without even glancing at who was calling.

At first, nobody said anything, but he still heard something. Background noises. It sounded like a group of people laughing or talking, and he heard music, too.

"Who the hell is this?" he demanded. If this was some pathetic prank caller interrupting his precious sleep—which he still wasn't getting enough of, even though college had gotten easier . . .

"Bellamy?"

He stilled when a familiar voice came through. "Clarke?" Since when did Clarke Griffin _call_ him? Sure, they'd texted each other once in a while back when they had been . . . friends? If that was even the right word for it. But they hadn't been friends since last summer.

"Sorry to call you," she apologized. "I know it's late."

He glanced at his bedside clock. Half past midnight. Not that late, but not exactly early, either. "No, it's fine," he assured her, confused as to why she'd be calling him. She'd avoided the fuck out of him ever since that disagreement at the movie theater last year. Whenever she came over, she barely said two words to him, and most of the time, she and Octavia hung out at her house these days.

"I'm _really_ sorry to call," she emphasized right before a roar of laughter arose from . . . wherever she was.

"What's up?" he asked, sliding down towards the foot of the bed. He got up and grabbed the sheet, tying it around his waist like a towel. He left Roma lying there in his old Star Wars t-shirt and headed out into the hallway, prompting, "Clarke?" when he didn't get any response from her.

"I just . . . I didn't know who else to call," she said quietly.

He frowned, shutting the door to his room. "What's wrong?" Something about her tone just didn't seem right. She didn't seem like _Clarke,_ at least not the Clarke he knew.

"I-I need you to come get me," she stammered. "I'm at a party."

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and his whole body tensed. A party? Oh, no, this didn't sound good. He did _not_ like the thought of this. "Where?" he asked, already starting down the stairs.

"I'll text you the address," she said.

"Okay." He was halfway down the stairs when he remembered he didn't have any pants on, just his sheet, so he turned and headed back upstairs and slipped back into his room. "You alright?" he asked her. Stupid question, though. If she was alright, she wouldn't be calling him to come pick her up.

"I just need to get out of here," she replied after a moment. "Can you hurry?"

Could he _hurry_? Hell, if he had his way, he would've already been out the door. "I'll be there soon," he promised. "Clarke, you call the cops if you need anything."

"No, it's not that bad," she said, and the shouting coming from the background nearly drowned her out. "Just . . . hurry, Bellamy."

"I will." As much as he hated having to end the call, he knew he had to in order for he could text him that address. The text came through while he was in the middle of yanking on a pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt. He took a second to look at the address, and even though he wasn't _sure_ it was the same house he'd driven her out to a year ago . . . damn, it seemed familiar. Finn's neighborhood, if he recalled. Shit, he didn't want her to be there.

"Where are you going?" Roma whined, sitting up halfway in the bed.

He didn't waste time giving her an answer. Instead, he hurried out of his room, keys in hand, and trundled downstairs, taking them two at a time. He got in his car and took off, determined to make what was typically a ten minute drive in only five.

The drive wasn't a pleasant one. His mind ran wild with horrible what-if scenarios. What if someone had done something to her there, drugged her or something? It wasn't hard for high school kids to get their hands on date rape drugs these days. If there was a party, then there was probably drinking, and it would've been easy for someone to slip her something. He used to worry about this kind of thing all the time with Octavia, but Octavia had Ilian, and Ilian was actually a pretty stand-up guy. Clarke didn't . . . she didn't _have_ that, and if something bad had happened to her . . .

He gripped the steering wheel tighter and drove faster.

Just as he'd suspected, the address Clarke had sent him led him to Finn's house. He recognized it from the instant he turned the corner. There were more than a few cars parked out front, and he could hear some hip hop coming from inside. It wasn't much of a house, wasn't much of a neighborhood, but it did look like quite the party. There was some kid out front throwing up, and a couple making out on the porch swing. It reminded Bellamy of every Friday night he'd ever had in high school, except it had all seemed so much cooler back then.

The only place to park was a couple houses down, so he fucked up what should have been a careful parallel parking, left his car halfway jutting out into the street, and got out, bolting towards the party pad. He had to dodge the puking kid, who almost through up on his shoes, and tossed the make-out couple a condom, because . . . well, clearly it was heading in that direction anyway. He walked in like he owned the place and surveyed the scene.

No, not good. Girls were dancing in their underwear while guys filmed them on their phones. There were two kegs, only one of which seemed to have anything in it anymore given the way so many people were crowded around it. And Clarke was nowhere in sight.

He grabbed a random guy who was staggering past and gruffly asked, "Where's Clarke?"

The guy looked at him as though he didn't even comprehend English and asked, "Who?"

Bellamy rolled his eyes and let him go. The kid took a few more stumbling steps, tripped over his own feet, and landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, laughing at his own drunkenness.

 _Shit, I hope I was never like this,_ Bellamy thought, taking out his phone. He was about to text Clarke that he was there, figuring that'd be a lot less embarrassing than just shouting her name or something; but when he saw a wisp of blonde hair peeking out from upstairs, he knew it was her.

"Clarke?" he called, rushing up the steps.

She met him a few steps down, smiling shakily. "Hey," she said. "Thanks for coming."

"Yeah, no problem." He took a moment to look her over. No marks or bruises or anything, but she had a leather jacket on, all the way zipped up even though it was hot as hell in that house. She kept tugging down on the short—way too short—sparkly dress she was wearing, like she wished it was longer.

"Let's just go, okay?" he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

She flinched away from him, and that concerned the hell out of him.

"Yeah," she said, nodding hurriedly. "Let's get out of here."

"Okay." He led the way down the stairs, happy to be able to block her smaller frame with his larger one. They both had to step over the drunk kid who was still lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, but other than him, no one noticed them leave.

He stayed close to her as they walked down the sidewalk to his car, but not too close, because he sensed she wouldn't like that right now. When they got to his car, he opened the door for her, and she said, "Thanks," as she sat down inside.

 _God, Clarke,_ he thought, staring down at her sympathetically. What had happened here tonight? He wasn't about to ask, but he sure as hell hoped she'd tell him.

The drive home was quiet. Silent, actually. Clarke sat with her arms wrapped around herself, legs crossed at the ankles, looking out the window. Bellamy glanced at her periodically, not sure if he should ask her if she was okay when she clearly wasn't, not sure if he should tell her parents once he got her to her house. She probably wouldn't like that, but . . . they were her parents. They should probably know she'd been at a party like that. Unless they already did? He knew Abby and Jake Griffin were both usually pretty consumed with work, so that left Clarke on her own a lot, but . . . hopefully they'd want to make sure she never attended a party like that again.

He added a few extra turns into the drive, purposefully taking a longer route home than was necessary. Maybe if it took longer, she'd work up the courage to say something, let him know just what kind of situation he'd gotten her out of. But there was just more silence until he finally pulled the car to a stop in front of her house.

She didn't move a muscle to get out, though. In fact, she just stared down at her lap mutely.

"Clarke?" he said, shutting the car off.

She sniffled, eyes still downcast when she said, "My parents are in D.C. There's no one . . ." She trailed off, letting out a shuddering exhale. "It's just me."

 _Well, fuck._ He couldn't very well drop her off by herself when she was obviously such a wreck, could he? He supposed he could go in with her and stay for the night, but . . . she was sixteen and he was twenty. That probably wasn't . . . recommended.

"O's stayin' at her dad's this weekend," he revealed, already starting up the car again. "You can crash in her room."

She finally looked over at him, and this time, she smiled gratefully. "Thanks, Bellamy," she said. She sounded so . . . meek. And Clarke wasn't a meek person at all.

It took only about thirty seconds to roll on down the street to his house, but it was thirty seconds of more silence. He was out of the car and around to her side before she could even get out on her own two feet. She looked unsteady, and in fact, she was. Her legs buckled underneath her, and she fell against him.

"Whoa," he said, holding her up. "You okay?"

She didn't nod unconvincingly this time, didn't attempt to smile. She shook her head, letting herself cry, and whimpered, "No."

He practically had to carry the girl inside, but once he got her set up in Octavia's room, she wasn't crying anymore. She lay down on her side, clutching Octavia's Wonder Woman pillow tightly to her chest, and squeaked out, "Bellamy?"

"Yeah?" He knelt down by the side of the bed.

She stared at him sadly for a few seconds, and then . . . she told him everything. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it still wasn't good. Apparently, she and Finn were one of those on-again/off-couples high school was so infamous for, and inviting her to this party of his tonight had been his way of trying to make them on-again. But Finn had been drinking and trying to get her to drink, too, and when they'd gone up to his bedroom to talk . . . well, he hadn't been all that interested in talking. Bellamy questioned her in great detail, needing her to tell him what had happened. Because if that fucking asshole had tried to take advantage of her, Bellamy was going to kill him.

"He just got kinda . . . grabby," Clarke said, shaking beneath the blankets. "And I told him to stop, because . . . I mean, it was too much. And he did, eventually, but it just made me feel uncomfortable, so that's why I called you, and . . ." She blinked back tears, looking down at the bedspread as though she were ashamed. "I'm sorry, Bellamy," she whispered.

"What? Why?"

"Because, I woke you up and-"

"Clarke, if it's something like this," he cut in, "you can call me anytime. I don't care."

"I know, I just feel stupid."

"Hey." Almost instinctively, he reached out and touched her hair, brushing it away from her face. She didn't flinch this time. "You're not stupid."

"But I _feel_ stupid. And guilty, because . . ." She propped herself up on her forearm, rolling her eyes at herself. "I've been such a bitch to you this past year. I called you a loser. You're not a loser."

"Neither are you," he reminded her. "But Finn's a loser."

She smiled sadly and agreed, "Finn's a loser. And I knew that. I mean, he has a girlfriend named Raven who goes to another school. But I was still willing to get back together with him. Why? What does that say about me, Bellamy? Am I spineless?"

"You're definitely not spineless." Hell, from what he could tell, Clarke had a hell of a lot more spine than most girls her age had.

She sighed heavily and said, "I hope not."

"Don't worry, Clarke," he assured her. "You're gonna be fine." And he wasn't just saying that, either. He honestly believed it. Clarke Griffin was smart as fuck and cute as hell, and she had plenty of things going for her. So what if she was still trying to figure herself out? Wasn't every sixteen year old doing the exact same thing?

He waited until he was sure she'd fallen asleep, then shuffled back upstairs, expecting to find Roma still in his bed. She wasn't, which was fine, because then he didn't have to shoe her out. It didn't matter that he had his bed to himself now, though, because there was no way he could fall back asleep after all of this.

So he drove back to Finn's. Doubled-parked the hell out of his car and stormed inside, looking to intimidate a little jackass. And that was exactly what he did when he found that kid getting high on the couch. He grabbed him by his stupid hair and pulled him to his feet. "You think you're a big man, huh?" he roared, shoving the little punk back against the living room wall. "You don't know the first thing about bein' a man."

"Dude," Finn said, holding his hands up in front of himself. "I don't know what your problem is . . ."

"My _problem_ . . ." Bellamy got up in his face and slammed his fist against the wall, right next to his head. "My problem is you thinkin' you can put your hands on some innocent girl. And if you ever touch her again, you and me . . . we're gonna have a much bigger problem than this. You understand me?" He glared at him, meaning every word.

Finn nodded fearfully. Yeah, he understood.

Bellamy backed up, looked around at the now stunned and silent partygoers, and suggested, "You might wanna get outta here before I call the cops." And that was all it took to send them fleeing in a frenzy.

Bellamy cast one infuriated glare back at Finn before he left, making it clear that he was more than willing and available to come back and kick his ass if it ever came to that. He had a feeling that now, it never would.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4: Resting_

Even though Bellamy could have spent spring break down in Miami with some of the guys from his fraternity, he opted not to. Sure, the promise of a plethora of topless women was enticing, but if he went, he'd have to put up with Murphy for an entire week. And even though he'd begrudgingly allowed that guy to become one of his closest friends ever since they'd been randomly paired up as dorm roommates freshman year . . . a week with him? In a hotel? Possibly sharing a bed? A week where Murphy would need a constant chaperone so as not to cheat on his girlfriend, Emori? Nah, Bellamy wasn't up for that job.

Spending spring break at home in Arkadia was fine. Mundane, but fine. Truth was, he'd always been a bit of a mama's boy, and what with him moving out for good this summer, this was really the last chance he'd get to be at home for more than a couple of days. Even though his mom assured him that his room would always be his room, that she wouldn't change anything, that he was welcome to come spend the night whenever he wanted . . . he was twenty-one now, and he knew it was time to leave the nest, so to speak.

He wanted to maximize the time he could spend with his family at night, so while Octavia was at school and his mom was at work during the day, he slept. It was nice. Lots of good dreams, plenty of sexual ones, which were always his favorite. He found himself waking up every day around 4:00 in the afternoon, feeling refreshed. And hard, but . . . that was easy to take care of.

Midway through his gloriously free ten days of spring break, though, he woke up earlier than normal. He stretched and rubbed his eyes, glancing at the clock next to his bed. God, his eyesight had really turned to shit, because he couldn't see anything. He had to grab his glasses and put them on just to make out the big red numbers. 3:30. Huh. A little earlier than normal. He glanced down at the mattress, surprised to see that he _wasn't_ pitching a tent this time. _Really?_ He'd woken up _before_ the sex dreams? That wasn't even fair.

He lay there for a moment, contemplating whether or not he should try to nod off again, when he realized why he had woken up in the first place. There were sounds coming from Octavia's room. Not the sounds she and Ilian had been making that one time they thought they'd been alone and he'd . . . god, no, he had to block that memory from his mind. It was more like . . . crying. Faint crying, but enough for him to hear it and be concerned.

He got up and out of bed, retying the drawstring on his sweatpants as he padded down the hall to her bedroom. Opening the door, he asked, "O, you okay?"

"Bellamy!" Octavia hissed. She was sitting on the bed with Clarke, who was slumped forward, face covered with her hands as she cried. "Don't you knock?"

"Sorry, I thought you were crying," he said.

"No, _I'm_ fine." She gave him an impatient look.

He surveyed Clarke for a moment, not sure what was going on. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen Clarke Griffin cry, and four of those times had been back when she'd been a kid. The other time had been after Finn's party last year, but . . . well, that was different. Right now, she looked like she would become an instant internet meme for _"sobbing"_ if he snapped a picture and posted it.

Pointing to Clarke curiously, frowning at Octavia, he tried to piece together what was going on. But Octavia just shrugged helplessly and rubbed her friend's back.

"What's wrong, Clarke?" he asked, moving into the room so he could take a seat on the foot of the bed.

"Nothing," she replied, her words muffled against her hands. "Everything. I hate high school. I hate guys." She gradually lifted her head, giving him a glimpse of the mascara tracks fading down her cheeks. "I just hate everything and . . . why are you shirtless?"

He glanced down at his chest, having forgotten momentarily that he'd strolled in there with only his sweats on.

"He sleeps like that," Octavia answered for him. "Although sometimes, if Bree's over, he's pants-less."

"Who's Bree?" Clarke asked.

"Nobody," he deflected quickly.

"She's his new sex friend now that Roma got engaged," Octavia readily explained.

"Okay, now that we got all that out of the way . . ." Words could not express how much he _didn't_ like to think about how his sister knew the details of his sex life. Although it was a hell of a lot better than knowing the details of hers. "What's the matter?" he asked again, figuring he could tell some of his dumb, nerdy jokes and make her feel better about whatever it was that was bothering her. He and Clarke had been on really good terms these past few months, ever since that disaster party. By not saying anything to anyone about that, he'd earned her trust, and by getting on with her life and never giving Finn a second thought, she'd earned his respect.

"It's not even that big of a deal," Clarke said. "It's just . . . stupid fucking prom."

"Ah." He nodded, remembering prom well. Or . . . parts of it, at least. He was pretty sure someone had spiked the punch, so there were some blurry spots in his memory. "What happened? Didn't get asked or got asked by the wrong person?"

"Didn't get asked," she lamented. "Well, Finn asked me, but . . ." She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. Oh, and the good news is, that Raven chick he was dating? She dumped his ass, so now he has no one to go with, either."

"See, that's the bright side," Octavia said, as if they'd had this conversation before. "You gotta remember to look at the bright side."

"But the downside," Clarke continued telling him, "is that I didn't get asked by anyone else. So I went to Wells. You remember my friend Wells?"

He made a face. "No." How was he supposed to remember a kid he'd never met?

"Well, anyway, he's my friend, and he's always liked me, but I've never liked him like _that_ , remember?"

"Oh, like _that_." He nodded, semi-remembering now. "Go on."

"Anyway, we always agreed we'd just go to senior prom together if we didn't have dates, but when I asked him about it, he said he didn't wanna go with me because he didn't wanna be my 'second choice.'" She made a face of exasperation. "What the hell? He wasn't my second choice."

"Wasn't your first choice, either," Bellamy pointed out, just to keep things in perspective.

"I know, but . . ." She groaned frustratedly, lying back on Octavia's pillows, rubbing her eyes, wiping some of the mascara tracks away. "It just sucks. And your sister here has the perfect boyfriend who's gonna get her the perfect corsage, and they're gonna dance, and drink-"

"Fruit punch," Octavia cut in abruptly.

"And then . . . well, they're just gonna have this _great_ night."

"And it's all gonna be _very_ PG-13," Bellamy said, shooting Octavia a pointed, warning look. "Yes. That's what I thought."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Bell," Octavia reminded him, flopping down next to Clarke.

"You're still my little sister." There would never be a day when protective big brother would cease to be a featured role in his life. "Move over," he told Clarke, seeing a little space for himself next to her. She scooted closer to Octavia, and he settled in, sandwiching her on either side with a Blake. "You know prom's not all it's cracked up to be," he told her. "It's a joke."

"I know," she said. "But I was still looking forward to it. And especially since it's senior year."

"Well, who'd you go with last year?" he asked, wondering if maybe there was still another option for her.

"I don't know. Some kid."

"Some kid?" he echoed, chuckling. "Wow, that must have been a magical night."

That actually got a laugh out of her, a genuine one, and when he looked at her eyes, he noticed her tears had stopped flowing. So he must have been doing something right.

 _Dammit,_ he thought, feeling some sort of . . . internal tug. Yes, prom was a joke, and the fact that Clarke was crying about it was way too soap operatic for a girl like her, but . . . he still hated seeing her cry at all, and he felt like there was a way to put an even bigger smile on her face, make her feel better, possibly even give her the chance to go and enjoy herself with someone other than "some kid" this year.

Clarke mumbled something about hating men and being ready to swear off of them altogether as Bellamy sent his sister a look across the bed. He didn't have to say anything to communicate nonverbally that she had to leave the room. Octavia looked a bit confused at first, but gradually, realization swept across her face, and she nodded knowingly.

"I'm gonna go get something to eat," she announced, getting up. "You guys want anything?"

"Everything," Clarke replied. "I need to eat my feelings."

"Then I will bring _everything_ up," Octavia promised, giving Bellamy one last knowing glance before she left the room.

Clarke scooted over a bit, freeing up more of the mattress for Bellamy, and then she sat up slightly, propping herself up on her forearms. "Okay, Bellamy, you're a guy," she said, her brows furrowed with contemplation. "Tell me, am I attractive?"

Good thing he was lying down, otherwise that question might have knocked him over. "What?"

"Am I attractive?" she repeated, giving him a completely, one-hundred percent serious look. She really wanted to know; she wasn't joking around.

"You're . . ." He looked away, only because it was hard not to notice her chest when she was propped up like that. "You're my sister's best friend."

"But objectively speaking, am I attractive?" She sighed dramatically. "Oh, if it takes you that long to answer, it's probably a no."

"What? No, I didn't say . . ." Oh, crap, he felt himself getting tongue-tied, and all he wanted to do was get out of that question. "You're attractive, okay?" he told her, feeling slightly strange saying it.

"So are you," she said. "This is getting weird."

"And it's about to get weirder," he warned, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He cleared his throat, worked up the courage like he was in high school himself, and gazed down at her, struggling to keep a straight face when he asked, "Clarke. Do you wanna go to the prom with me?"

At first, she just blinked in confusion, like she wasn't sure she was hearing him right, and he knew he'd truly caught her off-guard. But slowly, surely, a smile crept to her face, and then suddenly, her eyes lit up. And then her whole face lit up, and she was squealing with delight, throwing her arms around him, squeezing him delightedly, pushing him back down onto the bed so she could give him some crazy full-body hug. "Thank you, Bellamy," she said, and there wasn't one hint of disappointment in her voice. Going with him wasn't her last resort, it seemed. And for some odd reason, that made him proud.

The logistics of getting him the A-Okay to attend prom were more complex than he'd thought they would be. Even though there wasn't a clearly-defined age limit on prom dates, the school wasn't exactly loving the thought of Clarke bringing a twenty-one year old as her date. Something about him being of legal age, able to buy alcohol—blah, blah, blah. The head of the PTA found out about it, and she was vehemently opposed to it, even wrote this whole rant on Facebook which _really_ pissed Bellamy's mom off. He ended up using his last day of spring break to go talk to the principal, Marcus Kane, who he'd always had a decent relationship with. In the end, Kane basically agreed to it because he knew Bellamy had been a 4.0 student at Arkadia High not that many years ago, and he knew he hadn't gotten into any trouble in the years since then. As far as twenty-one year old college students went, his reputation was a pretty respectable one, and that alone paved the way for his attendance.

Much to his relief, Clarke was a simple prom date. She wasn't one of those diva girls who demanded he wear a certain color tie or a certain designer brand of tux. She said she didn't even care if he got her a corsage, though he had Octavia do a little digging and found out a blue orchid corsage was Clarke's top choice. So he got her that, got himself a matching boutonniere, and ironed out the tux he hadn't worn since his own senior prom. It still fit pretty well, even though the jacket was a bit more snug than it used to be. He took that to mean that he'd bulked up a bit and looked more manly than he did in high school, not that he'd been to too many frat parties.

Even though she just lived down the street, he drove over to Clarke's house and picked her up like a gentleman. While he was waiting for her in the living room, her mother thanked him for taking her, and her father stared daggers at him, perhaps none too pleased with the fact that his daughter was attending prom with someone who was four years older than her.

When Clarke came downstairs, Bellamy couldn't deny being a bit . . . stunned. Was that the right word? Yeah. She was a stunner. She had on a dark blue dress, one with those cutout things on the sides. It had all the shimmery crap up top, and it was strapless, which . . . well, she'd be yanking that thing up all night. Her hair, rather than being in its signature half ponytail, was up, off her shoulders, and . . . she just looked really pretty.

"Wow," he said, smiling at her.

She smiled back at him, blushing a bit. "You look nice," she told him.

"Yeah, so do you." Looking at her now, he had to remind himself that she was seventeen, because . . . well, she didn't _look_ seventeen.

They had to pose for pictures out on her front lawn—her mom took enough to fill a damn photo album—and his mom, Octavia, and Ilian joined them a bit later. The moms got plenty of photos of the four of them, and then finally, after none of them could keep their smiles in place any longer, they got to leave. They all piled into Bellamy's car, Octavia and Ilian in the back under strict orders to keep their hands to themselves, and Clarke next to him in the passenger's seat. He let Clarke pick the music, which was a mistake, because she turned on some pop song—probably that damn Bieber kid again—and she and Octavia sang along to it, both of them horribly off-key, while he and Ilian suffered through it.

Once they were at the dance, the music selection wasn't much better. The DJ was a complete moron, but it seemed like the best idea to just let loose and go with it anyway. Clarke and Octavia danced with some of the other girls for part of the time, and neither one of them seemed to give a flying fuck about the so-called "popular" girls who were snickering at them when they were the only two to get out there and tear it up to an old school Britney Spears song. For the most part, though, Octavia danced with Ilian, whether it was a fast or slow song, and Clarke made it apparent that Bellamy wasn't just her transportation tonight; he was the real deal, and she expected him to get out there and move. He found himself on the dance floor a lot more at this prom than he had his own proms, but luckily, he had rhythm. He could dance. Usually, the dancing he did at frat parties was a little more . . . overtly sexual? But he couldn't dance like that with Clarke, so he made sure there was always enough space between them, and he limited them to fast songs only.

"Where'd you learn to dance?" she asked as he twirled her.

"I don't know," he replied, releasing her hand as he shifted his weight from side to side. "Just comes naturally."

"God," she groaned, swaying in time to the beat. "You Blakes are good at everything."

He wanted to tell her she wasn't such a bad dancer herself, but he got a little distracted when she had to pull up on the top of her dress. Again.

Towards the end of the night, another slow song came on, one of those obnoxiously sentimental country ballads, and he was about to flee the floor again when noticed this dejected look come over Clarke's face. She hadn't slow-danced with anyone all night. It was the one aspect of a perfect prom that he hadn't given her, and even though _obligation_ wasn't the right word for it . . . he felt like he owed it to her.

"You wanna dance to this one?" he asked her.

Her eyes widened with surprise, but her reply came quickly. "Yeah."

"Yeah?" Shit, almost instantly, he felt nervous. He hadn't slow-danced with a girl in years. What if he'd forgotten how?

He took a deep breath.

She moved in closer and looped both her arms around his neck, but he picked up her left hand in his right one and held them out to the side. "Old-fashioned way," he said.

She laughed a little, sliding her other hand down to rest comfortably on his shoulder, and he slinked his left arm around her waist, pressing it against the small of her back. Maybe it was because of all the dancing she'd done tonight, but she felt . . . warm. He wondered if he felt that way to her, too.

"Your palms are sweaty," she told him.

"Oh, really?" He hadn't noticed. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

They swayed awkwardly at first, until he found his swagger again and took the lead the way a man was supposed to during a dance. She looked down at their feet for the first minute or so of the song, then lifted her head to look into his eyes. "So how many girls did you take to your senior prom?" she asked.

"How many girls did I _take_?" he echoed. "Or how many did I take _home_?"

"Oh my god." She shook her head, smiling. "You're crazy."

"I was back then," he admitted. "Three, by the way."

Her eyes bulged.

"Well, I took three _to_ the dance," he clarified. "But I took four home."

"Didn't your mom have some serious questions?"

"Well, home was a hotel room that night."

She shook her head again, laughing lightly. "And here you lecture Octavia about sleeping with _one_ guy."

"Oh, yeah, speaking of . . ." He danced them closer to his sister and her boyfriend and called past a few couples, "Hey! O!"

She shot him an annoyed look.

"Save room for Jesus," he instructed, noting the way her body was practically plastered against her boyfriend's.

She just rolled her eyes and pressed herself even closer to Ilian, burying her face against his neck.

"Ha, ha," Clarke teased.

"Dammit," he swore. "She'd better not get pregnant."

"Relax, they're safe," Clarke assured him.

"Still . . ." He didn't like the thought of it.

Tilting her head to the side curiously, Clarke inquired, "Do you think they're gonna be together forever?"

He snorted at the idea, not because he had anything against Ilian or didn't want that for Octavia, but because the whole idea just seemed so far-fetched. "People don't usually find their soulmate in high school."

"My parents did," she pointed out. "They were high school sweethearts."

"My parents were a one-night stand." He shrugged.

She squinted her eyes, peering at him closely. "Do you wish you knew your dad?" she asked.

He didn't answer right away, not because he didn't know the answer, but because . . . well, he hadn't anticipated the question. Not coming from Clarke, anyway. They were friends, sure, and he thought a great deal of her, but most of their conversations tended to revolve around . . . well, her. It came with the territory of her being the younger one.

"I don't know," he replied truthfully. "Sometimes I do, but . . . my mom's all I really needed, you know? I think she raised me right."

Clarke smiled up at him, almost adoringly, and said, "I think so, too. You're a pretty decent guy."

He knew that, self-righteous as it sounded, but it was good to hear it. "Am I a pretty decent prom date?" he asked, grinning and wriggling his eyebrows hopefully.

She laughed, throwing her head back, and beamed a smile up at him. "Yeah," she said, "you are."

 _Good,_ he thought, happy to be able to be that for her. Over the past four years, he'd gone from being the guy who listened to her freshman year woes, just to get the inside scoop on his sister, to being her double date chaperone, then the person she called when she needed help, and now . . . this. Her prom date. It really . . . wasn't horrible.

The big, resounding chorus of the song kicked in, and he felt his footwork starting to slow, felt himself getting a bit lost in those blue eyes of hers. For a second, he let his mind go there, to a place he'd never let it go before, at least not with her. And before he knew it, he was entertaining the thought of kissing her.

 _Whoa._ Kissing her?

No, he couldn't do that.

Could he?

Didn't matter. When she moved in closer and rested the side of her face against his chest, he didn't have the chance. But his heart started to beat faster, and he feared she might feel it. Because she was so close to him right now, so small in his arms, and there was _no room_ for Jesus.

He didn't know what the hell was going on, but what he _did_ know . . . was that she was seventeen. And still in high school. And he . . . wasn't.

But she was _almost_ eighteen. And she was _almost_ out of high school.

 _Get a fucking grip,_ he told himself, shaking the disturbing thoughts out of his head despite the fact that his left hand kept smoothing up and down her back. This was Clarke Griffin, his sister's best friend, the little girl he used to babysit. Sure, she was more womanly these days, and she filled out that dress like a fucking _Playboy_ model, but he wasn't about to make a move. No. They were friends, and that was for the best, because she'd probably go to college next year and forget all about him. That was fine.

It was just fine.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5: Passed Out_

Sometimes Bellamy awoke in weird places. It wasn't uncommon to wake up on the floor of some freshman girl's dorm room and have no recollection of how he'd gotten there. One time, he'd actually woken up in the medieval history section of the campus library covered in lipstick and bite marks and . . . he didn't have any explanation for it. He did have excuses, though: 1) He lived in a fraternity. B) He was an upperclassman in that fraternity. D) There were lots of parties with lots of alcohol in that fraternity. And 5) He was inherently more good-looking than his fellow frat-brothers, so getting laid was never a problem.

His fifth year was shaping up to be the wildest one yet. All the parties were starting to blend together, yet he wasn't complaining. It was a nice escape from the real world, which always seemed to be lurking on his doorstep, begging him to figure shit out when it came to his future.

The annual Halloween party must have been one hell of a trip, because somehow, he ended up outside, legitimately passed out face down on the grass. If the campus police had really given a damn, they could have come by and arrested him for public intoxication, but luck was on his side, and he dozed there until the sprinklers kicked on, waking him up.

"Fuck," he swore, struggling to move. Each and every one of his limbs felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

"Bellamy?" he heard a voice call faintly.

That voice. Ah, he recognized that voice. He rolled over onto his back, struggling to open his eyes. "Clarke?"

His vision was blurry, but it cleared a bit when she came to stand beside him, peering down at him in what could only be described as the sexiest Halloween costume he'd ever seen: full on black latex jumpsuit with a tail coming out the back. Cat mask with whiskers and everything. She was Catwoman.

"Holy shit," he swore, wondering for a second if he was dreaming. Wouldn't have been the first Clarke dream he'd had these past few months.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked him.

"Sleeping," he answered with a yawn, coughing up water when the sprinklers swung towards him again. "Can you . . ." He pointed out the shut-off for the sprinkler system, located next to the only tree in the front lawn.

"Yeah, sure." She walked over there, giving him his first glimpse of the high heels she was wearing, and his mouth watered a bit when she bent over and twisted a knob to shut the sprinklers off. Damn, that costume wasn't leaving _anything_ to the imagination. On the one hand, it really turned him on. But on the other hand, it made him fear what Octavia had decided to wear.

"You're always waking me up," he mumbled, stretching sleepily. It was at that moment that he glanced down at himself and noticed he wasn't wearing anything except his black SAXX underwear, which, much like Clarke's costume, wasn't exactly concealing anything.

"I didn't wake you up this time; the sprinklers did," she said, making her way back towards him. She sat down, clearly struggling not to rip her cat-suit, and asked, "What're you supposed to be anyway?"

"Hmm . . ." He peered down at his chest, not sure which pectoral he'd written it on. He spotted a smudge of ink on the right one, though, and pointed it out to her.

"What's that say?" she asked, squinting at the letters he'd written with a Sharpie. "God?"

"Mmm-hmm."

She pretended to gasp in outrage. "That's blasphemous."

"Mmm." He shrugged as best he could while lying down.

She giggled a bit and asked, "Just how drunk are you right now?"

"I'm not drunk," he denied.

"You're in your underwear on your front lawn," she pointed out.

"I'm not drunk, though." He paused a moment to allow for a burp. "Are you?"

"No." She shook her head adamantly. "You always told me girls have to be careful at college parties, remember?"

"That's right. Not everyone's a nice guy like me," he said, feeling his words slur together.

"Nope," she agreed. "Guys are losers. That's why I'm trying something new."

"Oh, yeah?" He yawned, not because he was bored by her or the conversation, but because . . . yeah, he was really, _really_ drunk. "What's that?"

"Girls," she chirped.

He knew his eyes must have nearly bulged out of his head, and he nearly choked on his own spit. "Are you kidding me?" he spat in disbelief.

"No, I'm serious," she insisted. "I've been hooking up with my R.A., Niylah. It's kind of awesome. And there's, like, no strings attached, you know? We both know we're just having fun."

"Oh." Well, that was a relief. Because on the one hand, the thought of Clarke hooking up with another chick was so very, _very_ hot to him, but that also meant more competition and . . . not that he was holding out hope that she'd ever like him like _that_ or anything.

"Yeah, it's really fun," she said. "I wouldn't say I'm a lesbian or anything, but . . . bi, maybe? Bi-curious? I don't know."

"Ah, well, good for you, Clarke," he said, not about to shame her in any way for doing what plenty of other eighteen year old girls were doing these days. "That's what college is about, you know? Finding yourself, figuring out who the hell you are."

"And who are you, Bellamy Blake?" she asked, grinning down at him. "Figured that out yet?"

"I don't know." He sat up slowly, grimacing as the world started to spin for a few seconds. But gradually, it settled down, and his stomach stopped doing backflips. "I'm passed out on my front lawn. I probably still got a ways to go."

"Well, when are you gonna graduate?" she questioned. "Let's start there. I feel like you've been in college forever."

"Five years," he said. "It takes most people five years these days. And I changed my major sophomore year. Some of the credits didn't transfer over. And I didn't take summer classes."

"Aw, I love it when you get all academically fussy," she teased.

"But I'm gonna graduate this year," he told her, finally answering the original question.

"And then what?"

"And then . . ." He shrugged hopelessly. "I don't know. Get a teaching job. Or get into grad school if I don't get a job."

"Both good options," she said.

"Yeah, but see, if I do grad school, then I'll still be here. You know? Like . . ." He gestured limply with his hands, struggling to articulate any thoughts. "Around here."

"In other words, you'll still be able to keep an eye on Octavia," she concluded.

"And you." He smirked.

"No, Bellamy, I'm doing fine," she assured him. "I don't need you to be my big brother, too."

 _Oh, shit,_ he thought, feeling his heart sink to the pit of his stomach. Big brother? That was the last thing he wanted her to think of him as. "No, not a brother," he said adamantly. "Just a friend."

"A good friend," she said, nudging his shoulder with her shoulder. "But I really am doing fine, Bellamy. I remembered how you always said college classes were harder than high school ones, so I'm studying a lot. All A's so far. I'm even gonna try to keep a 4.0. I'm gonna do better than you."

"Well . . . we'll see."

"And I've made a lot of friends so far," she went on, "and I'm even in biochemistry club."

"Bio-" He made a face of disgust. "That sounds awful."

She huffed. "Well, it might not be as _riveting_ as Greek mythology club, but . . ."

"Greek mythology club _is_ riveting," he argued. "You should come with me sometime." Had he been sober, he probably wouldn't have slipped that in there for fear of it sounding too much like a date, but . . . no, dinner and a movie was a date. This was several steps down from that.

"Alright, I will," she decided. "But only if you come to biochemistry club with me."

He groaned, still thinking that sounded awful, but . . . hell, if it meant he could spend a little more time with Clarke, he was down for it. "Fine," he agreed, pretending to be all reluctant about it. Truth be told, though, he didn't feel like he'd gotten to spend nearly enough time with either Clarke or Octavia since they'd started college, because he'd been trying to give them space. They were eighteen years old, adults in their own right now, and they needed to spread their wings. He didn't want to crowd them; but at the same time, he missed them both, probably more than they knew. A couple phone calls and texts a week weren't enough. In a way, he missed them being those young girls who used to need him to chaperone their double date or drive them around. Not that eighteen year old Clarke wasn't awesome, though. Because eighteen year old Clarke was _awesome_.

He found himself yawning again, and she teased, "You're such a senior citizen. It's only 2:00."

"I'm just so fuckin' drunk," he muttered, rubbing his forehead.

"Ah, so you finally admit it."

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Oh, very obvious." She leaned back, tilting her head towards the night sky, and he swore to God, that moonlight made that suit look even tighter and shinier than it probably really was, and . . . fuck, it was a great costume.

"How long did it take you to get into that thing?" he asked her.

"Like fifteen minutes. Octavia had to help me."

He chuckled. "It looks good, though."

"Thanks." She craned her neck from side to side, as if working out a crick in it, and said, "I'd better head home."

"You want me to walk you?" he offered.

"Uh, no offense, but you can probably barely stand right now, let alone walk. You'd just slow me down."

"But it's late," he pointed out. Campus was relatively safe, but it was still a college campus. And it was Halloween. There were real life monsters out on Halloween.

"It's fine," she said. "I've got the rape whistle you gave me. I'm all set."

"I could still walk you," he offered.

"Or . . ." She drew it out for a moment, then angled her body towards his. "I could just stay here."

He tensed, wondering, again, if he was dreaming. Because a couple of his dreams had started out this way.

"I just don't wanna go back to my dorm," she complained. "Octavia and Ilian are-"

"Don't say it," he sliced in quickly, cringing.

"I just don't care to be there for that."

"Well, why don't you go stay with Nala?" he suggested.

"Niylah," she corrected. "And I can't. We're not like that."

"Oh, you mean, like _that_?"

"Exactly. So can I stay the night or what?"

Oh, she could stay a whole bunch of nights if she wanted to, but . . . one step at a time. He'd take this one, play it cool, not expect anything. Sighing heavily, he pretended to think it over. "Alright," he finally said. "Let's go inside."

She had to help him up, which was embarrassing. She had to help him up _again_ when he tripped and fell. That was even more embarrassing. But she didn't seem to mind that he was drunk and in his underwear, and he _certainly_ didn't mind that the back of her cat suit ripped open the second time she helped him up.

A couple of his frat brothers were still awake, cleaning things up when they got inside, but most were passed out in the living room or upstairs with whatever chicks they were banging tonight. Murphy was still drinking, staggering around the living room aimlessly, grinning when he saw Clarke. "Well, well, well," he said, stumbling towards her.

"Upstairs, all the way to the right," Bellamy told her.

Holding the back of her cat suit closed, she scampered up to the second floor before Murphy could get much closer.

"Who's that?" Murphy asked.

Bellamy didn't answer, even though Murphy was pretty harmless at the end of the day.

"She's cute," his friend remarked.

"She's off limits," Bellamy informed him sternly.

"So she's your new girl or somethin'?" Murphy took another big swig from his red solo cup, tossing it aside once it was empty. "She looks young."

"You know what? Why don't you go screw your girlfriend?" Bellamy suggested.

"Why don't you go screw yours?" Murphy grinned, motioning upstairs.

Bellamy rolled his eyes and shook his head, determined _not_ to think that that was even a possibility tonight. Because it wasn't. Clarke was still Clarke, and he was still Bellamy, and more than that, he was _drunk_ Bellamy. Now, he was always at least satisfactory in bed—of that much, he was certain—but he wasn't much of a marathon man when he was drunk, and when— _if_ —that ever happened someday with Clarke . . . oh, he wanted to be a marathon man.

With a great deal of effort, he dragged himself upstairs and down to the end of the hallway, making the mistake of opening the door without checking to see if Clarke was decent first. It was dark in there, so he didn't see much, but he _did_ see that the costume that had taken her fifteen minutes to get into hadn't taken her fifteen minutes to get out of. It lay on the floor while she looked through his t-shirt drawer. Her back was to him, and it looked like she had underwear on . . . probably. Hopefully. ( _Not_ hopefully?)

He closed the door a bit, not shutting it all the way, wincing as he decided how to handle this. Dammit, he had _not_ thought this through. What if he snored and totally turned her off? Or worse, what if he had one of _those_ dreams about her and talked in his sleep? That was not the ideal way for her to find out that he was . . . feeling things. Things he didn't exactly wanna feel but had no damn control over.

Shit, this was not smart.

"Uh, Clarke?" he called nervously. "Am I good to come in?"

"You're good," she called back.

Taking a breath to steady himself, he pushed open the door, only to find her . . . good fucking lord, wearing his blue Archer "I'd Do Me" t-shirt, which went all the way down to mid-thigh on her. She was already crawling into his unmade bed.

The bed. Yet another thing he hadn't thought out about this whole scenario. It was just a double bed, not like a king-sized or anything. Fit for two people, sure, but there wasn't exactly room to sprawl out.

"Uh, I can—I can sleep on the floor," he stammered nervously.

"Don't be stupid, Bellamy," she said as she settled in. "It's your room."

Yeah, it was his room, but right now, it was his room with her in it. And that had never happened before. Not like this. And sure, he'd had plenty of girls spend the night here before, but not one of those girls had been Clarke, and not one of those girls had been able to fill out that t-shirt so well . . .

Oh, fuck, she wasn't even wearing a bra, was she? And those things still looked . . . bouncy.

Dammit, this whole night was gonna be the end of him.

 _Play it cool,_ he told himself, holding onto the last shreds of self-control he had. This wasn't a big deal unless he made it a big deal. And clearly she was calm about it, completely casual, so it wasn't a big deal to her. It wasn't . . .

 _Crap._ It wasn't a big deal to her.

Resignation swirled around him, this horrible, unavoidable truth that seeing him in just his underwear wasn't having the same effect on her that seeing her in his t-shirt was having on him. Crawling into bed with him wasn't as daunting to her as it was to him, because . . . well, it didn't mean anything. Here he was getting worked up, and everything about her was just calming down.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he thought. It was what it was. Blake genetics perhaps weren't everyone's cup of tea, hard as that was to fathom. Or maybe she'd just known him too long to ever see him in a different light.

"Are you getting in?" she asked, moving the covers aside for him.

What the fuck did he have to lose at this point? Why not sleep with but not _sleep with_ Clarke Griffin for the night? He crawled into bed with her way more awkwardly than he usually crawled into bed with girls, and he lay flat on his back, pulling the covers up past his waist. He was careful to keep his hands and feet to himself, to stay on his side, which just happened to be the side he usually slept on anyway.

She turned over onto her side, her back towards him, hair sprawled out behind her on the pillowcase. "Goodnight, Bellamy," she said as she tucked the covers under her arms.

He felt like an idiot as he stared longingly at all that blonde hair of hers, but . . . god, he wanted to curl up behind her and wrap his arms around, just to see what it felt like. Maybe if it felt good to him, it'd feel good to her, too.

But he wasn't brave enough to attempt that, nor was he dumb enough to risk it. So he just sighed and said, "Goodnight, Clarke," as he shut his eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6: Fatigued_

Bellamy wasn't sure how it happened that Clarke Griffin became his best friend, but . . . it happened. It happened naturally, slowly, gradually over the course of her freshman year of college, his second senior year. (Whatever. _It took. Most. People. Five years._ To graduate.)

It all started that Halloween night when she slept over. Before he knew it, she was coming over once a week to do that same exact thing. Usually they'd hang out downstairs for a while, not really doing anything productive. All the guys in his fraternity liked her, because she could kick their asses at poker and had the whole bisexual thing going for her. Hell, she and Murphy even hit it off pretty well, and nobody got along with Murphy.

At the end of these nights, she'd retire to his room with him, like it was no big deal; and maybe it really was no big deal anymore, because she'd gotten to the point where she didn't even think twice about changing in front of him. Which was torture, but it was a _good_ torture.

Around Christmastime, he found himself becoming greedy, wanting more than one or two of these nights per week with Clarke. Out for lunch with Octavia one day, he reached a brand new low when he awkwardly asked, "Do you and Ilian need more time to yourselves or anything?"

Octavia froze with a spoonful of cake in her mouth. Her brows furrowed as she stared at him curiously. Slowly, she removed the spoon and echoed, "Time to _ourselves_?"

"Yeah, you know, like . . ." He trailed off, because . . . good God, was he really encouraging his little sister to have more sex? Just so he could spend more time with Clarke?

Octavia stared at him in utter disbelief, mouth literally agape. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" she barked.

"Nothing," he denied quickly. "Just . . . if you guys need space or anything . . . Clarke can come stay with me." He cringed internally at how not smooth and not subtle this all was.

Octavia narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Are you high?"

No, he was just desperate, but drugs seemed like an easy way to cover up his true feelings. "Yes," he lied. And that was thankfully the end of that conversation.

Clarke went home for Christmas break, as did he, but there was no need to call up Bree this year. And Roma was getting divorced, so she gave him the eye when they ran into each other at the gas station, but he was done hooking up with her. He spent the majority of Christmas break with his old friend from middle school, Rosy Palm. Except for the nights when Clarke came and slept over, because . . . well, it didn't matter whether they were in his frat house or his childhood home, because she liked cuddling up to him wherever they were. Most of the time she slept in one of his t-shirts while he slept in sweatpants or his underwear, but she did get him a Pikachu onesie for Christmas, which he only wore two—three (maybe five)—times over the course of the next few months. And it was when the heat in the frat house went out and he was freezing his balls off.

Spring break was interesting, too, because by that point, he and Clarke were spending even more time together. They got lunch in between classes almost on a daily basis, went to both biochemistry _and_ Greek mythology club religiously, and even sometimes worked out at the rec center together. Well, _he_ worked out. Clarke mainly just rolled around on the yoga ball.

But spring break in South Beach was a turning point. Because by then, he and Clarke were pretty much in each other's orbits all the time, so much so that it didn't seem weird for the two of them to share one hotel room while Octavia and Ilian took the other. They were strolling down the beach, and Bellamy was explaining the appeal of natural breasts versus implants, all the while trying not to notice how amazing _her_ breasts looked in that miniscule bikini top. And then it happened.

 _Lexa_.

She threw a Frisbee that accidentally hit Clarke in the head, and Clarke was smitten from that point onward. The two girls struck up a conversation, and before any of the three of them knew it, they were at some tiki hut sipping margaritas, and Clarke and Lexa were exchanging numbers. Lexa took Bellamy's number, too, as if she really wanted it, and he mumbled something about it being nice to meet her, when really, she wasn't nice to meet.

He was so standoffish about that whole thing that, when they got back to the hotel room, Clarke even asked him, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, eyes glued to his phone as he fervently texted Murphy for advice. Things were _really_ bad when he was texting Murphy for advice, but Murphy was the only one who called him out on his bullshit and knew what his true feelings for Clarke were. Tossing his phone onto the bed, he tried to casually ask, "So you like that girl?"

"Yeah, I think so," Clarke said. "She was really hot. And interesting. And-"

"Bitchy?" he filled in. "I thought she was bitchy."

"All girls are bitchy," she rationalized. "Yeah, I think I might call her up tomorrow." She shrugged, clearly more at ease about the whole thing than he was.

"Oh, great," he muttered as she disappeared into the bathroom, probably to shower. "That's . . . great."

Clarke followed through on that, and the next day, she and Lexa were hanging out and then later hooking up in the hotel room _he_ had paid for with his _own money._ So Bellamy of course had to go out to a bar, find some random chick whose name he didn't even know, and bang her, too, in the bar's bathroom, no less. It felt like such a chore, he could barely even get off on it. And he was about ninety-five percent sure he said Clarke's name while he was cumming, but this chick didn't seem to mind. Anyway, he returned to the hotel after Lexa was gone and plastered a smile on his face, boasting about what a great night he'd had and what an _incredible_ girl he'd hooked up with. It didn't seem to make Clarke jealous. So he spent the rest of his spring break pretty pissed off about that while she and Lexa went out and swam with dolphins.

Spring break and all the jealousy accompanying it . . . that's how he knew he was in love with her.

It got worse after they got home, because Clarke actually decided to try a long-distance relationship with Lexa. Suddenly the nights she slept over with him were spent on Skype, talking to her girlfriend. And he had to sit there and smile and act like he was happy to see Lexa on the screen, when really, he wasn't. He longed for the days of Clarke's casual hook-ups with Niylah. What the hell had happened to Niylah? Why couldn't that be a thing again?

The worst part was, taking his hidden feelings for Clarke out of the equation, he actually kind of liked Lexa. She played _Mortal Kombat_ online with him and could quote complete scenes of dialogue from _Star Wars._ She was kind of badass and didn't seem to resent him for spending more time with Clarke than she was able to. In the real world, he would've gotten along with her just fine. But this wasn't the real world. This was Clarke world. And in Clarke world, he was envious.

When the end of his second senior year rolled around, Clarke and Lexa broke up. Nothing earth-shattering or dramatic. The long-distance thing was just too difficult to make work. Clarke was sad about it, of course, since it was her first real attempt at a relationship since Finn. He comforted her and consoled her and acted like he was so sympathetic, but really . . . it was the best damn graduation present he could've asked for. And he and Lexa were still PlayStation 4 buddies, so it was a win-win for him.

That summer was a glorious one, full of karaoke nights at their favorite on-campus coffee shop, numerous road trips to wherever the hell they wanted to go, and plenty of double dates with Octavia and Ilian that weren't _really_ double dates because he and Clarke weren't dating; but every waiter or waitress at every restaurant clearly _thought_ they were dating, because they always handed him the bill, and it always had both his and Clarke's meals on it. And he always paid for both of them, and she always thanked him. And when they were out and about together, no other guys dared to approach her, even though she looked _so damn good_ and just got better-looking all the time. Because they knew she was his.

That wasn't to say that Clarke didn't have options, though. After Lexa, she went through a guy phase again, but it was easy for Bellamy to find something wrong with each one. Grant had a hairy back. Aaron was only a 3.0 student. Louis was French. All of these things were major turn-offs for Clarke, and her hook-ups remained blessedly casual.

His own hook-ups were few and far between, each of them more unsatisfying than the last. It finally got to the point where Octavia noticed it and asked him about it as they drove home to their mom's for her birthday. "Are you celibate these days or something?" she teased laughingly.

He huffed at the ridiculousness of that. "No. I'm just picky."

"Since when?"

"Since . . . lately. I'm growing up. I'm maturing," he reasoned.

"Yeah, right," Octavia muttered. "I'm just gonna ask it: Do you like Clarke?"

He swerved the car a bit, only because the question caught him so completely off guard. "Well, yeah," he replied. "She's my best friend."

"But do you like her as something more than that?" Octavia pressed.

"No, of course not." He didn't know why he felt the need to lie to his sister. Maybe just because, as much he trusted her, there was still this lingering fear that she might let something slip to Clarke herself.

"Listen, if you want," Octavia went on, "Ilian and I can have more of our . . . couple nights."

"That'd be great," he said quickly. But really, it wasn't necessary. For their sophomore year of college, Octavia and Clarke were technically still dorm-mates, but Ilian lived in that dorm more than Clarke did. And Bellamy finally put on his big boy pants and moved off campus into an apartment of his own. Clarke spent a lot of nights there, even ended up with her own drawers in both his bathroom and his bedroom. He was constantly finding long, blonde hairs all over the place, because she shed like a chinchilla, and her bras and panties were always littered on his bedroom floor, but . . . he really didn't mind one bit.

Grad school started, and grad school sucked. It ate up so much of his time, and when he and Clarke were able to hang out, he found himself falling asleep on the couch a lot, sometimes drooling, sometimes drooling on her. She said she understood that he was busier now than he'd been as an undergrad, but he couldn't help but wonder if she missed the guy who used to be able to stay up until 3:00 a.m. watching _Grey's Anatomy_ with her.

Halloween happened, too. She dressed up a ketchup bottle. He was the mustard. (It was awesome.)

And then Thanksgiving rolled around, and honestly . . . he was sort of down in the dumps about it. For the first time in his life, he wasn't set to spend the day with his family. Octavia was with Ilian and his parents this year, and his mom had met somebody online and was meeting up with him. Hell, even Murphy had plans. So that left Bellamy all by himself, just him and his lonely apartment, while Clarke went home to spend the day with her family. She invited him along, of course, but he declined, only because he knew her grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins would be there, and he didn't want to subject her to an entire day of having to explain to them that he wasn't her boyfriend. Plus, he didn't really want to hear her say, "No, he's just a friend" over and over again.

His plan to combat the Thanksgiving blues was to simply sleep through most of it, maybe wake up at 2:00 in the afternoon and play _Mortal Kombat_ with Lexa, since she hated all holidays. He stayed awake the night before, watching porn well into the a.m. hours, and fell asleep with his laptop beside him in the bed. He wasn't sure how long he was out, but he was definitely sleeping soundly, enjoying some dreams that rivaled the pornography he'd just viewed. Then, suddenly, he heard, "Bellamy!" and awoke with a start as Clarke pounced on him. She hopped right up there onto the bed and right onto his lap, straddling his waist, her face aglow with excitement.

"What—what is this?" he croaked out groggily, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"This is your wake-up call," she bubbled. "Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Happy Thanksgiving," he echoed halfheartedly, yawning. "Oh, what time is it?"

"Time to wake up." She chirped. Then, spotting his computer, she said, "Ooh, Bellamy . . ." and moved the mouse to get the screensaver off. She gasped and exclaimed, "Amateur porn! Getting ideas?"

"For what?" he asked, trying not to lose his mind with the way she was sitting on top of him.

"For videos," she said. "Wanna make a porno?" She bounced up and down a bit as she said those words, and it was too much.

"Holy shit, Clarke," he swore, lifting her off of his lap before she felt how instantly aroused that made him. He sprung out of bed and bolted for the bathroom to . . . take care of it.

It was a little weird, masturbating while Clarke was in the next room, but it wasn't the first time he'd done it, nor would it be the last. Plus, one time he'd walked in on her in the bathtub and . . . well, suffice to say, masturbating wasn't just something guys did. When he was done, he washed his hands, brushed his teeth, threw on a fresh pair of sweatpants, and moseyed on out to the kitchen, where Clarke was setting the timer on his microwave.

"What're you doing here?" he asked her. "I thought you were headin' home this morning."

"I was," she said, spinning to face him. "But then I just decided to come here instead."

"Why?"

"Because . . ." She came towards him and slipped her arms around his torso, sliding up his back. He embraced her, too, well-accustomed to these hugs of theirs. (When you were in the friend zone, hugs were the equivalent of blow jobs.) "No one should be alone on Thanksgiving," she said, tilting her head back so she could look up at him. "I know you were dreading it."

"I was fine," he insisted. "You can go home to your family. You don't have to spend the day with me."

"I want to," she said, smiling. "Besides, I already got the turkey in the oven."

"Really?" He took a whiff, not yet able to smell it.

"I just put it in," she said. "It's gonna be great."

"Have you ever cooked a turkey before?" he questioned, threading his hands through her hair. Clarke Griffin was known for being good at many things, but cooking was not one of them.

"Bellamy, it's a turkey," she said. "How hard can it be?"

As it turned out . . . pretty hard. A couple hours later, after leaving in it way too long and actually managing to set off the smoke alarm, he and Clarke stood at the counter, staring at a turkey that looked like . . . tar. Just blackened tar. It didn't even look like food anymore; it looked like rubber. Completely inedible, a failed cooking attempt if he'd ever seen one. He knew he could've cooked that turkey with his eyes closed, but she'd just been so damn cute and adamant insisting that she could do it herself.

"Pizza?" he suggested.

"Pizza sounds good."

Luckily, even with the holiday, they could still get a delivery guy out there with their usual: one large pan pizza for the two of them to split, half meat-lovers for him, half extra cheese for her, and garlic breadsticks with dipping sauce. They sat on his living room floor with some Radiohead playing lightly in the background, eating to their hearts' content, drinking wine straight from the bottle, and laughing as they talked about what Ilian and Octavia were probably up to right about now. Ilian's parents were sheep farmers now, and apparently they wanted to put Octavia to work out there. Octavia didn't like animals, so it was bound to be disastrous, and Bellamy really hoped Ilian posted some videos to Twitter or Instagram, because it would be hilarious just to watch his sister try to act natural and pleasant around sheep.

"Mmm, this is so much better anyway," Clarke said, reaching for another slice of pizza.

"So much better," he agreed.

She spotted a piece of pepperoni on her slice and fed it to him. He tore his last breadstick in half and gave her one half of it, because she always had more room for breadsticks than he did.

"We should make this a Thanksgiving tradition," she suggested. "Pizza and alcohol."

"You're too young to drink alcohol," he reminded her, grinning.

Defiantly, she brought the wine bottle up to her lips and drank what was left of it. He watched her throat move as she swallowed, and it got his mind going to the gutter. His mind practically _lived_ in the gutter these days.

"I'm serious," she said, setting the now empty bottle aside. "We should do Christmas together this year, too. Just us."

Oh . . . he liked the sound of that. But for Clarke to even suggest that meant something was up. Because Clarke loved Christmas, and she loved the spectacle of lights her dad put up on their house. So something wasn't right. "Why didn't you go home today, Clarke?" he asked, setting his last slice of pizza back in the box. "Really."

She stopped eating, too, and looked down at her lap. "Really?" She took a deep breath, then exhaled it, and set her pizza down next to his. "I finally told my mom and dad I'm bisexual," she revealed quietly. "On the phone last night. Why? I don't know. It was a really stupid idea." She pouted sadly. "They didn't take it well."

 _Oh, no,_ he thought, feeling his heart go out to her. Clarke had confided in him on numerous occasions how scared she was to open up to them about that. She wasn't ashamed or anything, but . . . her parents had different views, set views, on certain things, and sexual orientation was one of them.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She shrugged and shook her head. "It's okay. They'll get over it."

"Yeah, they will," he agreed, wishing there was something more he could say to make her feel better. But words didn't seem appropriate, so he just put his arm around her instead, pulling her close to his side. He kissed her forehead, which he rarely ever did but loved to do, and just sat there with her for a long while, holding her, comforting her, feeling the wetness of her tears as they slipped off of her cheeks and onto his chest.

Half an hour later, she was asleep, so he picked her up and carried her into his bedroom, depositing her on the bed. He stripped out of his sweatpants and underwear and climbed into the shower, dousing himself with some much-needed cold water. He thought about rubbing one out again, but . . . that seemed like a dick move—no pun intended—when Clarke was asleep in the other room, all upset about her parents.

The door slid open suddenly, though, and much to his surprise . . . there she was, naked Clarke, not as asleep as he'd thought. She stepped into the shower with him like she did it every day, even though she'd never done it before. He'd seen her naked plenty of times, and a lot of the time when she fell asleep in his t-shirt, it was _only_ his t-shirt with nothing underneath, but . . . having her this close without a single stitch of clothing on . . . it shocked the hell out of him.

"Uh, Clarke?" he said, immediately adjusting the water so it was warmer. He covered his package with one hand and kept his back to her. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," she murmured, stepping under the water with him. She pressed herself against his back, breasts splayed out on his skin, and wrapped her arms around his waist, linking her fingers together atop his stomach.

"Are we conserving water? What're we doing here?" he rambled nervously, instinctively putting his hands atop hers.

A content purr was all he got in response as she rested her head against his shoulders, like he was her pillow or something.

"You're drunk, aren't you?" he concluded.

"Maybe," she murmured, sounding as if she could actually fall asleep standing right there.

Sighing disappointedly, he squeezed her hands in his, at the same time letting the tension dissipate from the rest of his body. This was why he always made sure to stay relatively sober when she was drinking, because he didn't want to risk them winding up in a situation where they were _both_ not thinking clearly. But even if she did remember this tomorrow, she wouldn't care. In her mind, it would just be like . . . sure, why not shower together? They already slept together most nights. _Platonically,_ of course. Everything was just so damn platonic.

For her, maybe. But not for him.


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7: Exhausted_

Clarke officially became Bellamy's roommate when she was twenty years old. She was laboring through a particularly jam-packed junior year of college—she'd taken too many classes because she was determined to get done in four years instead of five—and she spent most nights at his place anyway. She and Octavia and Ilian all had their own house off campus, but since she barely ever stayed there and usually ended up falling asleep on Bellamy's couch or in his bed, it just seemed logical to make it official. They didn't even need to get her a key to his place, not when she already had one. All they had to do was talk to the landlord and get her name on the rental agreement. Simple.

Octavia was pretty chill about the whole thing. Over the years, she'd accepted the fact that Bellamy had taken her place as Clarke's best friend, and she and Clarke were still close. Ilian, on the other hand, teased Bellamy about it mercilessly. On the day the four of them banded together to haul all of Clarke's crap into the apartment, Ilian kept saying things like, "When are we gonna decorate the nursery?" and "Why don't you just put a ring on it, man?" At one point, Bellamy got so fed up, he pushed the guy into a wall. And that shut him up.

Living with Clarke now was virtually no different than it had been before, except that he had someone helping him pay the rent. Having a few extra bucks in his pocket each month meant that he was able to save up some money for an incredibly stupid decision: a tattoo. Clarke decided she wanted one, too, so they went to the most reliable, clean tattoo parlor they could find, each with their own agenda: He wanted a wolf on his right shoulder blade, and she wanted a rainbow around her belly button. The tattoo artist made sure to inform her, though, that her tattoo would look a lot different if she ever had a baby someday, and she backed out on it quickly enough. Bellamy was still gung-ho about his, though, until she dared him to get her initials tattooed instead. He accepted the challenge, and as the tattoo artist was etching the quarter-sized _C.G._ onto his shoulder, she said, "I can't believe you're doing this."

Somehow, Clarke walked out of that tattoo parlor with _his_ initials tramp-stamped on her lower back, too, and hell, he wasn't about to question how that had happened.

Octavia thought the tattoos were weird. Ilian thought they were cool. Murphy just shook his head and said, "I can't believe I'm friends with such idiots."

Murphy and Ilian were both convinced that he and Clarke were going to hook up at some point. In fact, they were both surprised it hadn't already happened. The three of them had frequent bro-dates where Bellamy's feelings for her were always a topic of conversation. But whenever he started to listen to them, started to believe them, and started to get his hopes up, he brought himself back down to earth and remembered that, if Clarke had romantic feelings for him, she wouldn't be willing to sit on the toilet while he brushed his teeth. If Clarke had romantic feelings for him, she wouldn't lie in bed for three nights every month lamenting all the gross details of her gross menstrual cycle. If Clarke had romantic feelings for him, she'd use his dick instead of her vibrator to get off. But damn, did she use that vibrator. She used it so much, she asked him for a new one for Christmas. It was a weird gift, but he got it for her, along with plane tickets to Times Square for New Year's. They watched the ball drop, and for a second, he contemplated kissing her there. But somehow she ended up kissing some random chick, so he did the same.

As far as relationships went, though, Clarke didn't commit to any serious ones after Lexa. Which was good, he supposed. And her flings were just that: flings. A couple days with some girl, a week with some guy. Nothing serious, nothing threatening, and for the most part, Bellamy's jealousy was on cruise control. At the end of the night, even though he wasn't the one having sex with her, he was still the one sleeping next to her. He was still the one holding her tightly in his arms when she had a bad dream, or spooning up behind her to keep her warm when the power went out and they almost froze to death. These random people she fucked from time to time? It was sex, and then it was done. Sure, maybe he didn't have sex with her, but he had something a hell of a lot better: intimacy.

He and Clarke . . . were intimate. In ways that were hard to explain. And they both knew it. She sat on top of him and gave him back massages when the stress of grad school threatened to overwhelm him. He braided her hair while they lounged together on the couch and she failed miserably at _Jeopardy_. They turned on the Latin radio station and had samba nights in their underwear from time to time. And sometimes, when he just wanted to hear her laugh more than anything in the world, he'd reach over in the bed while she slept and tickle her to wake her up. She'd usually try to swat away his hands at first and tell him he was being annoying, but then her giggles would start to bubble up, and soon enough, she was squealing with delighted laugher, trying to get away while he kept her pulled in close.

The only difference between living with Clarke and living with a girlfriend was that he could have kissed a girlfriend, could have told her he loved her. He kissed Clarke on the cheek sometimes, and she did the same with him, but it never went any further than that. He _did_ love her, though, despite the lack of kissing. God, he loved her so much.

Clarke was . . . happy. She was happy living with him. Of that much he was certain. Every day, even if she woke up in a bad mood, she ended up smiling at him, ended up laughing at something he did or said. It filled him with a sense of pride to know that he could make her so happy, but deep down, he knew there was something missing for her: There were two parent-shaped holes in her heart that had been a bit vacant ever since last year's Thanksgiving. He knew she missed her mom and dad, missed the closeness she'd once shared with them. Ever since she'd told them she was bisexual, their relationship had been severely strained. They talked on the phone and mostly spent holidays together out of obligation, but other than that . . . it was like the connection was severed. Sometimes she'd lie in bed with him and cry about it, confess just how devastated it made her feel to know that they didn't accept her for who she was.

Which is why it was a really big fucking deal when her parents announced they were stopping by for dinner on Mother's Day. They sprung it on her over the phone, and when she ended the call, she looked at Bellamy with panic in her eyes and said, "Three hours."

He took that to mean they only had three hours until her parents got there, so he sprang into action. The apartment was in dire need of a clean, so he vacuumed while she scrubbed down everything in the kitchen. He made the bed while she frantically put the laundry away. He dusted while she attempted to clean their microwave—an impossible task that left her yelling, " _God!_ How did we let this thing get so dirty in the first place?"

With thirty minutes left until their arrival, Bellamy got dressed in his nicest pair of jeans and his nicest black t-shirt. There was no need for a suit or anything. These people were neighbors who had seen him in diapers when his mom had brought him home from the hospital. But he wanted to look nice. He wanted their place to look nice. He wanted the whole day to just _be_ nice. For Clarke's sake.

Dressed to impress, he sauntered out into the kitchen to find his girl feverishly unpacking some food from Hy-Vee. She'd used their catering service, due to her inability to perform even basic cooking functions in the kitchen. Smart move.

"Smells good," he said, looking over her shoulder to see what she'd chosen. "Mmm." Chicken cordon bleu and some cheesy rice and broccoli casserole. Looked appetizing to him.

"It better taste good," she said, scooping a helping of the casserole onto each of the four plates she'd set out on the counter. "Can you finish this? I have to go get ready."

"Yeah, sure." He took over for her while she scampered into the bedroom. He'd just gotten each plate prepared and set out on the table with the silverware when there was a knock on the door. They were early.

Clarke whimpered helplessly from the bedroom and whined, "I'm not ready! Bellamy, can you get that?"

"Yeah, I got it." He wiped his palms against his jeans, feeling a bit nervous himself, and opened the door. "Hey, Jake. Abby," he greeted as cheerfully as possible. Although truth be told, he wasn't exactly thrilled to see him. They weren't bad people, and he knew that; but they weren't as supportive of their brilliant, beautiful daughter as they should have been.

"Good to see you, Bellamy," Jake Griffin said, extending his hand for a shake before he came inside.

Abby hugged him on her way in, a bit tersely, but a hug nonetheless. "Is Clarke here?" she asked.

"Yeah, she'll be out in a minute," Bellamy replied, motioning towards the bedroom. He sat down with them in the living room and talked about news and current events and all that jazz for a few minutes. They asked about Octavia, and he told them how she and Ilian were talking about getting engaged and how he was forcing himself not to freak out about it. It was all pleasant smiles and light laughter. And then Clarke came out of the bedroom, and there was just silence.

She smiled at them shakily, hopefully, and they slowly rose from their seats. Bellamy froze in his, staring at her, slack-jawed. Because she looked amazing. She was only wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt with dark blue jeans, and her hair was swept back in somewhat messy braid; it wasn't exactly a red carpet type of look. It was casual, but she looked stunning. And he couldn't look away.

"Hey, Mom," she said. "Hi, Daddy."

And then . . . it happened. They hugged her. First her mom, then her dad. Then both of them at the same time. Bellamy sat back and watched, noticing the tears in her eyes that she had to blink back. He wondered how long it had been since they'd hugged her. Too long.

The food was cold by the time they got around to eating it, so Bellamy warmed everything up in the freshly-cleaned microwave. The conversation flowed pretty well, and it was all relatively light-hearted at first. Clarke talked about her classes, and about how happy she was to have survived junior year. Her parents asked her a bit about her plans for med school, but they didn't push it too hard when she admitted she still needed to figure that out.

Bellamy didn't expect the conversation to shift to him, not when he was just a background figure in this whole family reunion. But it _did_ shift when Abby cleared her throat and asked, "So, Bellamy, what's going on with you? Is there anyone . . . _special_ in your life?"

He nearly choked on the chicken in his mouth. "Uh . . . define special," he said, because hell yeah, there was someone special in his life. She was sitting right next to him, her feet touching his beneath the table.

"Are you seeing anyone?" Abby clarified.

"Mom," Clarke hissed.

"What? I'm just curious."

Bellamy laughed nervously and took a sip of his wine. "No, not really," he said. "Not right now."

"Hmm." Abby smirked, glanced at her husband, and then back at Bellamy. "That's interesting."

Clarke frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, nothing," Abby said dismissively, once again smiling at Bellamy. He smiled back, a bit confused himself.

At the end of the dinner, he went outside, making some excuse about needing to go check on the elderly lady down the hall. In all reality, he just wanted to give Clarke and her parents some time alone, some time to talk. They needed that. He called his mom for the second time that day, just to wish her happy Mother's Day again, and then he called Octavia to remind her to do the same. She sounded like she was in the middle of having sex with Ilian, which, no matter how old she got, was still disturbing.

After about thirty minutes outside, Bellamy headed back upstairs to his apartment, lingering outside the door for a bit. He heard conversation coming from inside, but he couldn't make out what was being said, so he opened the door just a crack. That's when he heard Abby talking . . . about him. Saying his name. Bellamy this, Bellamy that. She was . . . praising him, complimenting him. And then finally, she said, "Why don't you just settle down with Bellamy? He's such a good man."

He gripped the doorknob tightly, careful not to make a peep as he waited eagerly for Clarke's reply.

"I know he is," Clarke said, "but . . . it's just not like that."

His whole body slumped, defeated. So much for that small spark of hope.

"But you already live together," Jake pointed out. "I'm sure he'd be willing to marry you."

 _He sure would be,_ Bellamy thought sadly.

"Dad. I'm twenty years old," Clarke reminded him. "I'm not ready to get married."

Their conversation started to escalate after that, with Clarke's voice taking on a bit of an accusatory tone when she said that she knew the only reason they'd come here today was to try to find out if she was _really_ bisexual or just going through a phase. Her parents denied that, of course, though the whole thing did seem kind of fishy to Bellamy. In an attempt to cut things off before it became a full-on argument, he cleared his throat and pushed open the door, stepping back inside. Abby and Jake smiled at him politely, thanked him for being such good company, and within minutes, they were hugging both him and Clarke goodbye, and they were on their way.

Once they were gone, Clarke practically tore off all her nicer clothes and shoved on a pair of his boxers and one of his t-shirts. She unbraided her hair, washed off all her makeup, and plopped down on the couch with a carton of cookie dough ice cream in hand. He got into some comfier clothes, too, piled all their dishes in the dishwasher, and sat down next to her while she ate, putting his arm around her. "It could've gone worse," he pointed out.

"Could've gone better," she muttered dejectedly, eyes downcast. "They like you, though. They always have."

"Well, that's because I'm so likable." He squeezed her shoulders, grinning down at her smugly. "And cuddly," he added, knowing that she just needed someone to snuggle up to right now, and there was no one more up for that job than him. "Wanna cuddle?"

For whatever reason, that offer was enough to elicit a smile, and she set her ice cream aside on the coffee table. Then she scooted in as close to him as possible and rested against him, halfway sitting, halfway laying. He held her close, rubbing his hand up and down her back, letting his fingers play with the tips of her hair. And it seemed like she started to feel better.

They sat there together for hours, watching show after stupid show on TV. He ran the remote control but let her picked the content. She opted for funny stuff most of the time, but when he got all excited about the Watergate documentary that the History channel was showing, she begrudgingly said, "Fine, we can watch it. _Again_."

It was the same documentary he'd already made her watch four times, so it was no surprise to him when she nodded off during the middle of it. He stayed awake for as long as he could, his eyes on her more than they were on the TV screen. But eventually, weariness got the best of him, too, and he felt his head lowering to the side as his eyes struggled to stay open. Resting his cheek against the top of her head, he fell asleep.

He always had dreams, usually wild ones, often about Clarke. Most of the time, they were sexual in nature, which made sense given the lack of sex he had with her. But this one, this time . . . it was different. It was fragmented, yet vivid.

He dreamt about having her in his arms in a different way, in the way where he was carrying her across their threshold. Her in a white dress that made her look even more angelic than she normally did, him in a tux that was way too expensive to just be worn once. He dreamt about kissing her as he set her down on her own two feet, about calling her Mrs. Blake and getting to see her smile bigger and brighter than he'd ever seen her smile before. He dreamt about hoisting her up again, literally swooping the girl off her feet, and molding his body to hers as he laid her down in his bed, _their_ bed . . .

And just like that, it was over. The lights from the TV illuminated their darkened living room, waking him up. Beside him, Clarke was stirring, whimpering something unintelligible. She scrunched his shirt up in her hands and clutched it tightly, the way she always did when she was having a bad dream.

"Shh," he soothed, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. "I got you. It's alright."

That seemed to work, because slowly, she loosened her grip on his shirt, stopped squirming, and her whimpers faded out altogether. Her body relaxed against his, and she kept sleeping, hopefully moving onto some better dreams now.

 _I love you, Clarke,_ he wanted to say, and now would have been the perfect chance to just whisper the words while she couldn't hear them. But he didn't. He didn't say it, even though he felt it. He was too afraid.

She knew, though. She had to know. Even though he'd never told her, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that Clarke Griffin knew he loved her. She just didn't know how much.


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter 8: Awake_

The day after her twenty-first birthday, Clarke said something that shocked the hell out of Bellamy.

"I think I'm gonna go out with Wells today."

Bellamy was in the middle of eating a particularly delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the kitchen counter when she announced this. He swallowed what was in his mouth and asked, "Like on a date?" as nonchalantly as he could.

"Yeah," she said, twisting her hair up into a bun on top of her head. She let it fall before securing it and shrugged. "Why not, right? He's in town visiting his dad, and he called me up for lunch, so . . . it might be fun."

Bellamy set the remainder of his sandwich back down on his plate, suddenly not hungry. "It mightbe," he said, trying to remember the last time Clarke had legitimately gone out on a date with someone.

"He's gonna be here in an hour," Clarke went on, "so I'd probably better get ready."

An hour? His heart started racing. Shit, that wasn't long to talk her out of this. "What makes you wanna go out with him all of a sudden, though?" he asked, rising to his feet.

"It's not all of a sudden. I've known him for years," she rationalized. "We went to school together, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember." Back when she'd been fourteen and all about the gossip, and he'd been all too willing to listen, he'd heard all about Wells Jaha, the mayor's son who'd been the nicest, most mature guy in the grade. "I also remember that he used to have a crush on you," Bellamy recalled, meandering towards her. "And that you didn't like him back."

"I always liked him," she said.

"Not in _that_ way."

She sighed, flapping her arms against her sides. "Well, things change. I follow him on Twitter. He's gotten _really_ good-looking, and he's doing an internship with a senator in D.C."

"That . . . sounds kinda boring," Bellamy remarked, making a face.

"Well, he's a political science major. It's a really big deal for him."

Bellamy grunted and scoffed at that, "Political science?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, just . . ." Dammit, he was struggling here. He had to find something seriously wrong with a guy he'd never met, or else Clarke was going out on that date. "Do you even like political science?"

"No," she confessed, "but I don't like history, either, and that doesn't stop me from watching every Berlin Wall documentary ever made with you. I don't like Greek mythology, but that didn't stop me from dressing up as Artemis that one time."

"Athena," he corrected, trying not to salivate when he remembered how hot she'd looked in that costume. "That was cool."

"My point is, I don't have to have every single thing in common with the guy to get along with him," she surmised. Frowning a bit, she shook her head at him. "Anyway. I'm just gonna go get ready." Patting him on the chest, she brushed past him and headed into the bedroom.

 _Fuck,_ he thought, getting a bad feeling about this. What if Wells Jaha had no faults? What if he was flawless? What if she met up with him for the first time in years and decided she was attracted to him, decided she wanted to throw down with him? What if Wells and Clarke became the next Lexa and Clarke?! Except it would be even worse, because at least he and Lexa could still geek out over video games together. Wells seemed way too stuffy to be interested in anything fun whatsoever.

Not about to give up just yet, Bellamy followed Clarke into the bedroom and kept questioning the whole idea. "So why the sudden change of heart?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest.

"About Wells?" she said, her back towards him as she searched through their crowded closet for something to wear.

"No, just about dating in general," he clarified. "I thought you were trying to keep it casual."

"I was," she said, pulling out a form-fitting blue dress. "But then I just thought I should try something more serious."

Bellamy's jaw tightened with discontent as he watched her eyeing that dress. He'd seen her in that dress on her plenty of times. She looked incredible in it. It made her blue eyes shine even brighter, and the way it hugged her breasts and hips should've been illegal.

"Not that one," he said, marching towards the closet. He dug around in the back and pulled out a long-sleeved, velvety black number she'd worn to her grandmother's funeral last year. "Here you go."

" _That_?" she shrieked. "I don't think so."

"It's classy," he reasoned. "Modest."

"I don't wanna be modest; I wanna be hot." She took that dress from him and tossed it aside, holding up the blue one again. "I think I like this."

Good God, this was like a train wreck. None of his efforts at first date sabotage were working today. "Just do jeans and a t-shirt or something," he told her. "You don't wanna look like you're overdoing it."

"Hmm. You're right," she reconsidered, hanging the blue dress back up again. "Maybe my AC/DC one?"

He forced a smile, though on the inside, he felt like crying, because she looked _so damn cute_ in that particular t-shirt. "Sure," he said, banking on the hope that Wells wasn't an AC/DC fan.

She got dressed while he sat on the bed and contemplated his next move. With time ticking down, his options seemed limited. There was a fine line he had to walk between being protective and being outright jealous. If Clarke got the sense that he didn't want her going out with Wells for selfish reasons, then that would potentially throw their entire friendship off its axis. And it meant way too much to him to risk that.

"How do I look?" she asked, twirling around in front of him when she was done getting ready. She'd kept the makeup and hair simple, and really, she looked just as hot right now as she would have in that blue dress.

"You look beautiful," he couldn't help but say.

She smiled and turned to face her reflection in the full-length mirror. Smoothing her hands up and down her sides, she said, "I hope he still likes me as much as he did in high school. I'm hope I'm not a disappointment."

The fact that she thought she could disappoint anyone was simply baffling to him. Clarke had just gotten hotter, smarter, crazier, and funnier since high school. She definitely hadn't been the girl who'd peaked at eighteen, the way some of her classmates probably had been.

"So why the sudden desire to try something more serious?" he asked, standing up. He moved in close behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders as he gazed at their reflections, unable to not notice how perfect they looked together.

"I don't know," she admitted, meeting his eyes in the mirror. "Maybe because . . . I'm twenty-one now."

"That's still young," he pointed out.

"I know. But with Octavia and Ilian getting married soon . . . it's just made me realize that I _am_ an adult, and . . . if I'm not out there looking for the one, what am I doing?"

He tensed, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. "The one?" he echoed warily.

"Yeah, you know, the one person I'm supposed to be with."

He swallowed hard, struggling to keep his cool. "You think that person exists?"

"I hope so," she said, smiling at him in the mirror. "You'll find the one someday, too."

He pressed his lips together tightly to avoid saying something he'd regret and turned, walking away from her, hands on his hips.

"What?" she said. "Am I upsetting you?"

"No," he lied, although truthfully . . . yeah, she was pissing him the hell off. All this talk about 'the one,' when he knew for a fact that _his_ one was standing right there? Infuriating. And she was just oblivious to it.

"I am upsetting you," she said, coming up behind him. She rubbed his back, but he had to take a few steps away from her. Right now . . . he just couldn't have his hands on her, and he couldn't have her hands on him.

"I'm fine," he insisted.

Narrowing her eyes, she gazed at him suspiciously. "No, you're not," she said. "I know you, Bellamy. You're getting mad at me."

"I'm not mad," he denied. "It's just . . ." His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he felt himself struggling to find the right words to say, words that would let her know how he was feeling without letting her know too much. "You make it sound like I'm just wasting my life."

"No, I didn't mean it like that," she said, shaking her head. "I just meant that . . ." She paused for a moment, recollecting herself. "You're twenty-five, Bellamy."

"Yeah, I'm still young, too."

"You are," she agreed, "but I don't think I've _ever_ seen you have a serious relationship. With anyone."

 _Except for you,_ he wanted to say.

"And you're _such_ a great guy," she went on emphatically. "You'd make somebody really, really happy."

 _Somebody?_ he thought dejectedly. And here he thought he'd been making _her_ happy all these years.

"I just think you should consider getting out on the dating scene. For real," she advised. "That's all."

"That's all?" he echoed, feeling his anger rising, percolating just beneath the surface. "Shit, Clarke, you make it sound like nothing really matters unless you're somebody's boyfriend or girlfriend."

"No, I-"

"Like no other relationship could possibly measure up to a romantic one. Like no other connection's even that important."

"Bellamy-"

He didn't let her finish. "I have plenty of serious relationships in my life. Octavia, you, Ilian . . . hell, even Murphy. And unlike you, Clarke, I actually have a _good_ relationship with my mom." The minute the words left his mouth . . . he regretted it.

Her whole face fell, and she looked . . . more hurt than he'd ever seen her look before. He couldn't believe he'd just said that, and when her face steeled with anger, he braced himself for it. "Nice, Bellamy," she said. "But see, unlike _you_ , I actually have a father who cares that I'm alive."

But that . . . that was just as much of a low-blow, and they both knew it. She looked appalled at herself the second she said it.

The whole thing was like a train wreck. He wanted to put on the brakes, try to stop it, but his anger in that moment was too much, and he just kept going. "You really think your parents are gonna accept you if you bring Wells home for dinner? Huh?" he challenged. "You think that's gonna be enough to make them forget you're bisexual?"

"Shut up, Bellamy," she snapped. "Why are you saying this?"

"Why are you going on a date with someone you don't even have feelings for?"

"Because I _might_ have feelings for him!" she yelled. "Because I'm not like you, Bellamy! I'm not content to just wander through life going from one random stranger to the next. I want more."

"You want more?" he echoed, wondering what on earth she wanted that he couldn't give her.

"Yes!" Tears shimmered in her eyes, and he felt guilty as hell knowing he was the reason why they were there. "I'm not willing to end up being some twenty-five year old loser who's never been in love!"

Well, that wasn't subtle. He could read between the lines. "Oh, and is that what I am? You're back to thinking I'm a loser again?"

"Well, right now you are!" She whirled away from him, raking one hand through her hair, then spun back around vehemently. "God, what's wrong with you? Why are you being like this?"

"Why are _you_ being like this?" he shot back.

"Because, you're . . ." She trailed off, staring at him helplessly, unable to hold back the tears now, lower lip quivering as they spilled over.

And just like that, seeing her cry . . . it was his kryptonite, his weakness. He couldn't be mad at her, and he couldn't just stand there and let her feel so horrible. "Don't cry," he said, taking one step towards her, reaching out his hand to try to wipe away her tears.

"Don't touch me," she snarled, backing away.

He stared at her incredulously, horrified by what he had done here. He'd seen Clarke upset before, but not like this, not upset with _him_. Sure, they'd had their fair share of fights, but it'd all been harmless. This just felt . . . real. And pivotal.

Sniffling, dabbing at the corners of her eyes, she wiped away the traces of her makeup that had started to smear. "Wells is gonna be here soon," she mumbled. "Maybe you should leave."

He kept his eyes locked on her as this horrible, gut-wrenched, sinking feeling settled into the pit of his stomach. _What have I done?_ he thought, mortified. Had he just ruined everything he already had with Clarke, destroyed their friendship?

"Clarke-"

"Just leave, Bellamy," she said, practically fleeing into the bathroom. She slammed the door shut, turned on the sink, and started crying quietly. But it was still loud enough that he could hear her, even over the running water.

 _She's crying,_ he registered, hating himself in that moment. _She's crying because of me._ He'd watched this girl cry over plenty of people over the years—Finn, Lexa, her parents—but never had he imagined he'd be one of them.

He felt like the biggest loser in the world.

Only because it was what she wanted him to do, he left the apartment and headed down the highway to the Dropship bar. That place was such a dive, so much so that Clarke refused to go there, even though they were notoriously loose on checking IDs. But it was the perfect place for someone like him to drown his sorrows, wallow in his regrets, and wonder if he'd just fucked things up with the most amazing girl he'd ever known.

He was halfway through his second beer—and last one because he was driving and wasn't an idiot—when a Pamela Anderson wannabe ambled up to the bar, taking a seat on the empty stool next to his. Big blonde hair, big fake boobs. Not his type.

"Hey," she purred huskily. "I don't see you around here much. What's your name?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he muttered, bringing the bottle back up to his lips.

"It's a little early to be knockin' 'em back, don't you think?" she teased.

"Don't you think it's a little early to be laying out your sexual welcome mat?" That was a jerk thing to say, but he really didn't care.

She shrugged, undeterred. "I'm bored. Lonely. Husband's out of town."

"Yeah, I'm not interested," he told her bluntly. "Sorry."

"Are you sure?" she asked, probably trying to be seductive as she leaned closer, her breasts practically falling out of her top.

"Oh, I'm sure," he said, finishing what was left of his second beer. He set the empty glass down on the counter, looking her right in the eye when he said, "You're not the one."

The fact of the matter was, even though it was the middle of the afternoon, Bellamy still could have found somebody at that bar to hook up with. Or he could have taken a stroll across campus and caught some girl's eye. If all else had failed, he could have made the drive home, called up Bree and/or Roma or any of those cheerleaders he used to date in high school and had them over at his house in minutes. It sounded cocky, but it was true. And it was pointless, because none of that mattered to him anymore. He was past the point of no return with Clarke, past the point of being able to fake any sort of interest in anyone else, because sleeping next to her was a thousand times better than sleeping _with_ anyone else.

The echoes of their argument still reverberated in his head as he drove to Octavia's house. He found her inside, working out to some kickboxing video in the middle of her living room, and he made the dumb decision to walk up to her rather than announce his presence first. She swung her leg around and kicked him in the side.

"Oh!" he cried, doubling over in pain.

"Oh, sorry, Bell!" she apologized. "I thought you were an intruder."

He held one hand to his side, grimacing. "Good to know you got it covered if there ever was one."

"Yeah, I'm pretty badass," she said, pausing her DVD. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he stood up straighter as the momentary pain died down.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, just let me sit." He flopped down on the couch, an she sat down next to him, toweling the sweat off her forehead.

"What're you doing here?" she inquired.

He thought about making up some stupid excuse, but what was the point of that? Octavia would probably see right through it, so he figured he might as well be honest right from the start. "Clarke and I got in a fight," he revealed quietly.

"What?" she gasped, seeming genuinely surprised. "A real one?"

"Yes." What other kind of fights were there? "And it wasn't about some small thing, either, like me leaving the toilet seat up or her kicking off the covers. It was worse."

"How bad?" Octavia pressed.

"On a scale of one to ten . . ." He trailed off, thinking she got the point.

Octavia frowned. "What'd you fight about?"

"Just . . ." He rolled his eyes at his own childishness, his utter inability to control his jealousy, and admitted, "Wells." No need to go into the other stuff they'd said to each other. That was private.

"Wells?" she echoed confusedly. "Wells _Jaha?_ "

"Yeah, he's taking her out for lunch," he relayed bitterly. "Although by now he's probably taking her to Pound Town."

"Oh," Octavia said knowingly. "I see."

"You see what?"

She laughed a little, shaking her head. "You're not subtle, you know. You haven't been subtle for years."

He sighed heavily, shoulders slumped. "So you know?"

"Of course I know," she said flippantly. "I just haven't said anything because I was waiting for you to admit it to me. But it's so obvious. You guys are practically attached at the hip."

"Well, she's about to attach at the hip with Wells."

"No, she's not," Octavia declared confidently.

"Then why's she out on a date with him?"

"Because . . ." Octavia hesitated for a moment. "She can't work up the courage to go out on a date with you."

He gave her a puzzled look, because that just . . . didn't make sense to him. "What?"

"Oh, come on, Bellamy, are you blind or something? Open your eyes," she urged. "What you feel for Clarke is no different than what she feels for you."

His puzzled look must have turned into an absolutely bewildered one then, because . . . this was fucking news to him, and if it was true, it was the best damn news of his whole life. "When did this happen?" he spat. "How do you know? Did she say something to you?"

"No," Octavia admitted, and that burst his hopeful bubble a little bit. "But she didn't have to," she quickly added. "She's just as obvious as you are. Bell . . . everyone knows. Literally _everyone._ We've all just been waiting on you two crazy kids to figure it out."

What the fuck was happening? He sat there with his sister, stunned. If she was right, if this was true, then it was everything. But if she was wrong . . .

"What do I do?" he asked her, wanting answers, needing them. "I might really lose her, O."

She folded her legs up underneath her, thinking about it a moment. "Go to her," she said. "Wherever she is right now, find her, interrupt that date she's on, and tell her exactly how you feel. Tell her she's the love of your life, because obviously she is. And she deserves to know that."

There it was. His little sister's advice. It was good advice, but it scared the hell out of him.

"Can you do that?" she asked him.

 _Can I?_ he thought. He'd been holding the words in for years, the ones that got louder and louder in his head every single day.

Maybe it was time to let them all out.

He bolted.

Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, regardless of how all of this turned out, he'd call Octavia and thank her for giving him the courage to do what he probably should have done a long time ago. But for now, all he could think about was Clarke. His girl. His closest confidante. His best friend.

While she'd been getting dressed earlier, she'd mentioned the restaurant where Wells was taking her. Some high-class fine dining place that probably served caviar and had waiters named Raphael or something. Of course Clarke didn't know it was fine dining, which was why she'd agreed to wear the AC/DC shirt, so she'd probably panicked when she'd gotten there and saw how everyone else was dressed.

Bellamy stuck out like a sore thumb, too. He was in ripped, dirty jeans and a t-shirt while all the other men there were wearing suits and ties. But hell if he cared. He marched right up to the maître d', even slicing in line in front of a few people, and said, "Clarke Griffin," as though the poor fool behind the podium would have any idea what that meant.

"You have a reservation?" the maître d' asked.

"No, she's . . ." He tried to get a glimpse inside the restaurant, but it was too big to see everyone. "It's, uh . . . Jaha," he tried instead. "Wells Jaha."

The maître d' checked his scheduled and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, the Jaha party already left. If you'd like, I can put you down for 8: 30 tonight."

"No," Bellamy said, feeling defeated. "Never mind." He hung his head and slinked off, past the snooty people who were angry at him for cutting in line. He lumbered back to his car, resigning himself to being too late. Clarke and Wells were on their date. Who knew where they were or what they were doing now? She was probably having a great time, and quite possibly, they were forming a real connection.

God, he'd really fucked things up.

The drive home felt like a long one, and he spent the majority of it mentally debating what to do next. If Clarke and Wells hit it off, he'd lose his nerve to tell her how he felt. He'd settle back into Best Friend Bellamy mode and try to be less of a jackass, try to forget what Octavia had said about Clarke having the same feelings for him, too. Yeah, he'd _try_ to do that. But what if he couldn't? What if these words he'd never said were always right beneath the surface? Wasn't it just a matter of time until they came out?

When he got home, the apartment was quiet, only the low hum of the air conditioner making noise. It was 4:00 in the afternoon, way too early to even contemplate going to bed, but that was exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to knock himself out with some Tylenol PM, sleep the rest of the day away, and dream he'd gotten to that restaurant while she'd still been there.

Oh, it would've been epic. He set his keys down on the counter and took his jacket and his shoes off, imagining it. Yeah, he would've run right past that maître d' if he'd had to, knocked over waiters if they were in his way, and she would've been so surprised to see him there. Maybe even a little angry at first, but once he'd started talking, then maybe she would've softened up, smiled. Maybe she even would have blushed. And if he'd gotten the sense that she was feeling everything he was feeling, he would have kissed her right then and there, in front of Wells, in front of everyone. And it would have been _so damn epic,_ there probably would have even been applause. After all, he had a masterful kissing technique. Everyone would've applauded that.

"Bellamy?"

He startled when Clarke said his name and watched in astonishment as she slinked out of their bedroom, still wearing the same clothes she'd put on for her lunch date.

"What're you doing here?" he asked, so happy to see her.

"I, uh . . . I had Wells bring me home early," she explained, hooking her thumbs into her back pockets as she glided towards him. "It wasn't a good date."

"It wasn't?" Truth be told, he was glad to hear that.

"No," she said. "And not even just because I was still upset about our . . . our fight." She lowered her head for a moment, as if she were ashamed of it, then lifted it again. "There was just no chemistry," she said. "I ended up faking being sick."

He chuckled lightly, wishing he'd been there to see that.

"It's not his fault or anything," she went on. "He's a really nice guy. He's just . . ." She got close enough to him so that she could reach up and cup his cheek. "He's not you," she whispered.

He gazed at her curiously, wondering if he'd heard that right. Not . . . him?

"I think that's why I haven't been able to make it work on the dating scene," she said, "or why I haven't really been _on_ the dating scene much, actually. I just keep comparing everyone to you." She smiled shakily, adding, "And there's no comparison."

 _Holy shit,_ he thought. That sounded like . . . but no. Unless she actually said the words, he shouldn't assume anything. "Clarke . . ."

"Bellamy, I'm so sorry," she apologized suddenly. "For everything I said. For saying you're a loser, for saying what I did about your dad . . ."

"It doesn't matter," he told her.

"No, it does."

He swallowed hard, nodding, allowing it to matter. Because being in love with someone didn't mean that it was one-hundred percent perfect all the time. Arguments were a part of it, and he was plenty to blame for this particular one. "I'm sorry, too," he said. "I didn't mean to bring up your parents and . . ." He cringed, hating that he'd stooped so low just because he'd been upset. "I was pissed, and I overreacted, and I said a whole bunch of shit I didn't even mean."

"I know," she said understandingly. "I know you didn't mean it."

"I never meant to hurt you." He felt tears sting his own eyes with the knowledge that he had.

Her hands found his, soft fingers grazing his palms, and he held them tightly, finding his resolve again, his determination, his courage that had almost been re-buried. He heard his sister's advice and encouragement in his head, and he saw the compassion in Clarke's eyes, and he knew it was time. After all these years . . . he was going for it.

"Clarke, there's . . . there's something you need to know," he started in. "And I'm terrified to tell you, but I can't not say anything any longer."

"Bellamy," she whispered breathily.

"No, just . . . just let me get it out, okay?" If he didn't say it now, he might never, and he couldn't live with that regret. He took a deep breath and kept going, saying whatever felt natural and right in the moment, because it wasn't like he had anything planned. "You're the best person I know, Clarke. You're smart and hilarious, and kinda weird."

She laughed a little.

"But beautiful," he added. "I think you're beautiful. Inside and out." He moved his fingers over and around hers, intertwining them as he moved in closer to her. "You're my best friend, and you're amazing, and . . ." He just gazed into her eyes for a second, eyes he'd looked into a million times before, eyes that shone brightly up at him and weren't looking away. "I'm so fucking in love with you, Clarke," he blurted in a rush, having to look down at their hands when the words came out.

Her hands stilled in his, and he was pretty sure he heard her breathe in sharply. When he finally had the courage to lift his head and gauge her reaction . . . she didn't look upset. Or freaked out. Or repulsed. And she wasn't looking away from him.

"I love you," he told her, for the first time ever, as hard as that was to believe. "I love you . . . like _that_. And I don't know if you love me like that, too, which is why this is the most terrifying I've ever done in my entire life, but-"

She rose up onto her tiptoes and cut him off with a kiss. The kind of kiss that felt like a dream but wasn't one. For the first time in the thirteen years that he'd known her, Clarke Griffin's lips were on his own, and it felt like the most perfect thing in the universe.

Dumbfounded, he barely even managed to kiss her back before she pulled away, gazing up at him in awe. "I love you, too," she told him, and she sounded so happy when she said it. She _looked_ so happy. Like maybe she really had been holding it all in, too.

Even though they'd moved at a glacial pace up until this point, hearing her say that spurred Bellamy on, and suddenly, he didn't want to waste any time. He crashed his mouth down onto hers to _really_ kiss her, deeply, insistently, passionately. It felt effortless, and when he put his arms around her waist and she roamed hers up his chest, it all felt even better. She rolled her body against his as her hands slid around the back of his neck to reach up and tangle in his hair. He sneaked his hands underneath the back of her shirt to splay against her smooth, warm skin. They moaned breathlessly into each other's mouths as they kissed hungrily without coming up for air, until finally she tore her mouth away just enough to mumble, "The bedroom, the bedroom," against his lips.

 _Our bedroom,_ he thought, recapturing her mouth with his as they started stumbling that way together. _Ours._

It wasn't graceful (didn't need to be) as they tripped over each other's feet on their way in there. She walked backwards, nearly falling at points, but he refused to let her leave his arms, so he was able to hold her up. Kissing Clarke Griffin was literal heaven on earth, so he didn't stop when they ran into the bed. He hoisted her up in his arms and laid her down softly, carefully settling on top of her while his mouth continued its ravenous assault on hers. She gasped and rolled her head to the side as he kissed his way down her cheek, jaw, and to her neck, sucking and licking greedily at her skin there. God, she tasted so good, and he hadn't even gotten to _really_ taste her yet.

Beneath him, her legs opened, allowing him to settle in between, and he pressed his hips in close to hers. He was hard, and he knew that she could _feel_ how hard he was when he rolled his hips against her. The move made her whimper, so he lifted his had enough to look down at her and make certain she was okay.

"You sure?" he asked her. Because if she didn't want to rush . . .

She smiled eagerly and stretched upward to kiss him. And that was all the answer he needed.

Sitting back on his knees, he removed his shirt and tossed it onto the floor. She sat up and did the same, pulling hers over her head in one swift motion. She dropped it on top of his and reached behind her back to unclasp her bra with one hand. When her breasts fell free, he swore he almost died. Because even though he'd seen them before and even felt them before, seeing them like this was totally different. Her chest heaved with every breath, and he just stared at those boobs like an idiot for a minute. Laughingly, she grabbed his arm and pulled him back on top of her as she lay down again.

He kissed her some more, letting his tongue explore her mouth while his hands explored her breasts. He fondled and kneaded those soft mounds with his calloused palms and fingers, rolling her pebbled nipples between his fingertips. When the temptation was too strong to resist, he slid down her body a bit so that he could take one breast into his mouth, sucking, licking, and even biting at her nipple teasingly. She arched up into him immediately, gasping with delight, and he smirked against her skin, knowing he was doing something right.

Making sure to keep the other breast occupied with his hand (and switch back and forth often), he lavished attention on this most fantasy-inducing part of her body. God, how many times had he dreamt about this? There had been so many nights when she'd curled up against him and her breasts had pressed heavily against his chest. There had been many mornings when he'd just laid there, watching her chest rise and fall, imagining what it would be like to do just this. And now here he was, getting to show her just how much he loved these tits of hers. His only regret was that his stamina and patience didn't feel like they were at an all-time high right now, so he had to move on from them sooner than he would have liked. But later, he'd give them even more attention, because he was fascinated by their soft roundness, and he had all the time in the world to worship them.

The anticipation of what was about to happen escalated as he rained kisses down her stomach. He stopped when he got to her jeans and cast a glance up at her to check on her. She was watching him, working her breasts with her own hands now, looking more aroused than he'd ever seen her before. The knowledge that he was the one doing this to her was enough to drive him crazy, so he got her out of those jeans quickly.

When she lay before him in only her underwear, he thought he might die, because she looked _so_ gorgeous, and when she angled her legs the right way, he could see that she was _so_ wet. Grinning, he hooked his fingers into the sides of her panties and started to bring them down. She lifted her hips to help him, and painstakingly slowly, he pulled them over her ass, down her thighs, past her knees. By the time he had them at her calves, she got impatient and tried to kick them off herself, but she ended up kicking him in the chest instead.

"Sorry," she apologized.

He tossed her underwear over his shoulder and said, "No, don't apologize for . . . anything right now," as he took her in. She was keeping her knees up, legs close together, like she was shy or something, even though he'd seen her naked before. He slipped his hands in between her knees, urging them apart, and slowly, she spread her legs for him.

"Wow," he said, staring at her like a kid seeing _Playboy_ for the first time.

Giggling nervously, she squirmed and tried to close her legs again. "I feel so self-conscious."

"No, don't," he said, urging her legs open again. "You're so beautiful." He reached up to the top of the bed and grabbed one of the pillows, motioning for her to lift her hips so he could position it underneath her. "You're so beautiful." He just sat there and gazed at her in astonishment for a few seconds, contemplating his next move. Going down on Clarke had been at the top of his bucket list for years now, but if she was feeling nervous, he wanted to ease her into it. Besides, it'd been a long time since he'd taken the time to go down on a girl, so maybe he needed to ease himself into it, too.

He started with his hands, first tracing his middle finger up and down her slit, so lightly that she could barely feel it but enough to make her whole body quiver at the touch. He used more fingers to spread her juices before experimentally pushing his index finger inside of her. She moaned, and when he looked up at her face, her eyes were shut, and she was pulling on her own hair with one hand. The whole sight was hot as hell, so he added a second finger.

Her breath started to come in heavier pants as he pumped his fingers in and out her, and speaking of pants, his were feeling way too tight. He withdrew his fingers despite her moan of protest and quickly unfastened his jeans, pushing them down and kicking them off and onto the floor. He slid down as far as he could on the bed and put his head between her legs, checking her reaction yet again. Her eyes were closed again, so he just went for it, first by pressing a soft kiss to her. That alone was enough to make her inhale sharply and whisper, " _Bellamy_."

Damn. _Damn._ She must have said his name thousands of times over the years, but hearing her say it like this, during sex . . . it was like hearing her say it for the first time, and it spurred him on.

He kissed, licked, and lapped at her lower lips, using his thumb to play with her clit while he did so. Some guys tried to do the whole spelling the alphabet with their tongue thing while they were down here, but he had his own technique. Basically, he just kissed her here like he would kiss her on the mouth, and that included French-kissing. He used his tongue to tease her, taste her, and explore her in ways he'd only dreamed of before this moment.

For the most part, he kept his eyes closed and concentrated on what he was doing, but every so often, he'd look up at her to see how she was doing, and every time, he saw her getting closer and closer to the edge. She had the fingers of one hand in her mouth and was playing with her lips, and her other hand gripped the pillow beneath her head, squeezing it tightly as her hips started to press down against his face on their own accord. It was so hot, he had to grind himself against the mattress, because giving her this much pleasure was a pleasure of his own.

When she came, it was like her whole body clenched, and she dug her head into the pillow, back arching off the bed. He lapped at her, savoring everything he could get, and he didn't stop until her body relaxed and her high-pitched gasp faded into heavy breathing. "Good?" he asked, grinning at her.

Smiling blissfully, she laughed a bit. "Very good."

Even though she was still coming down from her orgasm, he gave her clit a few playful pinches, which caused her to shake a bit, and then he started moving back up her body, trailing kisses across her stomach again. Her abdominal muscles fluttered beneath his lips, and he slowed things down for a minute, pressing soft, feather-light kisses around her belly-button. She tangled her hand in his hair, massaging his scalp while he did that, and eventually, he kissed his way back to her breasts, lingering there for just a bit before lying down beside her, propped up on his forearm.

"That was so hot," he said simply.

She laughed giddily again. "Yeah, tell me about it." Turning over onto her side, she rubbed her legs together, and he wanted to think that was because she was trying to recapture some of the feeling of him being down there.

"Am I still your best friend?" she asked suddenly, gazing up at him with these big, innocent eyes.

It was such a weird question to ask right after all that, but . . . hell, it was adorable. "Yes, you're still my best friend," he assured her. "Am I still yours?"

"Oh, yeah," she replied emphatically. "I mean, you weren't before, but now you definitely are."

He chuckled and bent down to kiss her mouth again, letting her taste herself.

"You want me to return the favor?" she murmured against his lips.

Oh, he wanted that, no question. Eventually. But if she sucked on his cock right now, he'd lose it in no time. And her mouth wasn't the first part of her body he wanted to cum in. "Maybe later," he said. "Right now, I got another idea." Grinning mischievously, eager as hell, he lay down beside her and lifted his hips off the bed to finally get his underwear off. Fittingly enough, it was the same pair of underwear he'd been wearing that night she'd ambled up on him passed out on the front lawn of his fraternity.

"Oh my god," he heard her say.

"What?"

She looked him in the eye, then looked down at his crotch, then back up at him again.

"You've seen it before," he said.

"I know, but . . ." She squirmed a bit, adorably, and said, "It's so big."

Well, yeah, he already knew that, but it was always an ego boost to hear. "Don't worry, I'll make it fit," he promised, crawling back on top of her. He positioned himself between her legs, allowing the tip of his cock to cushion at her entrance, but he didn't push in yet. "Uh, do you want me to wear a . . ." He trailed off.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head.

"No?" Well, hallelujah. He was thanking God for this and all the other miracles today. "I love you," he said, kissing her again. He was about to fuck Clarke Griffin for the first time, and he'd get to feel it all natural.

Clearly the first orgasm had put her nerves at ease, because she started circling her groin against his while he got lost in making out with her. He sat up on his knees, moved forward a bit, and gripped the base of his cock with his hand, positioning himself. He teased her, moving it up and down along her folds, until she finally let out an impatient, "Bellamy . . ." And that was when he pushed right in.

"Oh!" she cried out, eyelids fluttering shut. Her mouth opened, and her brow furrowed, as if she were having to adjust to the size of him. He sank into her further, careful to be slow and gentle about the whole thing, and watched in amazement as her body gradually stretched to accommodate his. It looked incredible. It _felt_ incredible. It was wet and warm and snug, and it was the best feeling in the whole world.

Wanting to be close to her, _needing_ to be closer to her right now, he moved forward so that he was lying on top of her again, looming over her smaller body, one forearm on either side of her so he could hold himself up. "You okay?" he asked.

She nodded dazedly, eyes still shut, and he waited until she opened them and smiled at him before he started to move. He took it as slow as his arousal would allow, finding a steady rhythm right from the start. Since she'd already cum once, movement was smooth and easy, and judging by the look on her face, she wasn't in any pain.

She kept her legs out to the sides and moved her hands all over him while he thrust into her. She dug her fingers into his arms, brushed his sweaty hair off his forehead and squeezed his shoulders. But when he felt the scrape of her fingernails against his back, he knew she wanted more. And then she said one word that made his whole world go nuclear:

" _Harder._ "

Urged on by the fervor of her response, he picked up his pace and pushed in deeper, faster, allowing his thrusts to become more jarring. The mattress squeaked, and the headboard started to hit the wall. He felt the sweat trickling down the side of his face, and he knew he was going to lose it soon. But he wasn't willing to fly over that ledge until she did.

Beneath him, his girl matched his rhythm, rolling her body against his as he rocked into her. Her arms held desperately onto him, and his encircled her, keeping her as close as possible as they moved together towards fulfillment. He'd thought that he might need to reach down between them and play with her clit to get her off again, but . . . judging by the way she was moaning, that wasn't gonna be necessary.

A litany of swears flew out of his mouth as he stretched her, and she ended up wrapping her legs around him, pressing her heels into his backside like she just wanted him to go deeper. Spurred on by her "Bellamy, please," and, "Oh god, oh yes," he pushed in as far as he could go. He felt himself bottom out, and she must have felt it, too, because she gasped sharply, and seconds later, she let out a cry of release as she came again for him. He stilled for a moment, letting her ride it out and writhe beneath him, and as she was relaxing and coming down from it, he thrust into her a few more times, squeezing his eyes shut as he experienced his own consuming climax. He spent himself inside her, and he swore it was the best damn orgasm of his entire life.

He struggled to hold himself up after it was over, and he knew he should move off of her. But he felt so hesitant to do that. Part of him just wanted to lie there with her, still inside her, and stay connected like this as long as they could. But her body was probably sensitive right now, and he _knew_ his was sensitive, so reluctantly, slowly, he slid out of her and lay down beside her, struggling to get his breathing back to normal.

"Wow," she said, sounding completely spent as she lay in a boneless heap next to him.

"Yeah." Had that really just happened? Fuck, it really had.

"That was good," she breathed. "But tiring."

"Uh-huh." He was exhausted, too. But at the same time, he felt wide awake.

"I'd be good to go again, though," she offered, "if you don't fall asleep on me."

He chuckled, shaking his head. "Nah, I won't do that."

Three hours later, as the sun was going down, Bellamy and Clarke were still in that bed, and that bed was a mess. Pillows everywhere. Sheets everywhere. The scent of sex hung heavy in the air, and both of them were covered in dried sweat, saliva, and God only knew what else. They probably should have felt disgusting and eager to get in the shower, but neither one of them wanted to get out of that bed yet. Besides, Bellamy reasoned, when they did get up to shower, they'd just shower together. And it wouldn't be so fucking platonic this time.

She checked her phone during one of his "recovery periods" and said Octavia had texted her three times asking if Bellamy had talked to her today.

"What're you texting back?" he asked curiously, trying to sneak a peek at her phone.

"I just told her to stop texting because I'm busy fucking her brother," she replied as she sent the message.

"Oh, she's gonna love that," he said sarcastically.

"I know, right?" She set her phone aside on the nightstand and turned onto her side to face him. The sheet draped over her body, across every dip and curve he intended to map out and memorize over the course of the next few days. And then she asked, "So when did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That you liked me."

"That I liked you?" he echoed. "Or that I loved you?"

"Hmm . . . both."

He smiled fondly, thinking back. "Uh . . . prom night, probably. I kinda like you then."

"Really?" She wrinkled her nose. "I was seventeen."

"Almost eighteen." It made him feel less creepy to think of it that way.

"I was in high school."

"Almost graduated." Again, less creepy.

"I was not cute back then."

"No, you were pretty cute." He threaded his hand through her hair, remembering what it had felt like to dance with her that night, to have her in his arms for the first time. Nothing had been the same for him since that night. Nothing.

"When did you know you loved me?" she asked.

"Oh, that was . . ." He was a bit hesitant to say it, because it had taken some of that good old-fashioned jealousy for him to realize it, but . . . it was what it was. "Spring break. Your freshman year."

"Oh," she said, remembering. " _Oh._ "

"Yeah. Lexa and I still play _Mortal Kombat_ all the time, by the way."

She glared at him, feigning anger. "You play video games with my ex-girlfriend?"

"Uh-huh."

"You're an ass."

He laughed, shifting the focus to her. "Okay, what about you, though?" he pressed. "When did you know? 'cause Octavia said it was obvious, but I didn't think it was obvious."

"Oh, good," she said. "I tried really hard to hide it."

"So when did you know?"

"Well . . ." She bit her bottom lip, blushing sweetly. "I mean, I kind of _always_ had a crush on you."

"Always?" he echoed in horror. "You've had a thing for me since you were eight?"

"Pretty much," she confessed. "I mean, can you blame me? You were my best friend's hot older brother. That was the perfect recipe for a crush."

He rubbed his forehead, trying to comprehend the fact that Clarke had had feelings for him _this whole. Fucking. Time._ And he hadn't had a clue.

"But I never thought it would actually happen," she went on. "So that's why I dated Finn."

He snorted in disgust.

"I know, bad idea, but that night that you came and rescued me from that party . . ." She sighed wistfully, holding one hand to her chest. "That was a horrible night, but what you did was _so_ knight in shining armor, so that reignited my hope for a Bellarke spark."

"Bellarke spark?" he echoed, amused by that.

"Yes, and then I made a big deal out of that whole prom thing, but—okay, honestly, Wells and I never made a pact to go together. I just told you that so you'd feel sorry for me, because I thought, _maybe_ if you felt sorry enough for me, there was this slim possibility you'd go with me. And then you actually did."

Holy fuck, it was a crushed out conspiracy! How had he never known? "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

"No, I was very desperate for your attention," she confessed. "Which is why I wore that Catwoman costume for Halloween and invited myself to spend the night in your frat house."

"That night was torture," he cut in. "I almost died."

"I know, me, too. You were in your underwear."

"You changed into my t-shirt."

"Yeah, 'cause I was trying to seduce you."

"Oh my god." This was unbelievable. It was like looking at history through a completely different lens.

"But it didn't work, and you didn't make a move on me, so I just figured you weren't interested at that point. So I slid into the friend zone and tried to have other relationships and tried to get you to do the same, because I figured the only way I'd get out there and find someone is if you were off the market."

"So that's what all that was about today?" He shook his head. "Wow. We're idiots."

"We are," she agreed.

"You realize we missed out on three years of sex and romance, right?" he said. "Because I never would've done anything with you when you were underage. But once you were eighteen . . ."

"Like you said, we're idiots." She snuggled in a bit closer, smiling happily. "You know what, though? I wouldn't take it back for anything. I think it's better this way. Because I know you and I love you and I trust you more than anyone." She smiled affectionately. "I get to be in love with my best friend."

 _And I get to be in love with mine,_ he thought, losing himself in those eyes of hers. This whole thing was ridiculous and comical and cheesy and romantic all rolled into one. And just like her, even looking back and knowing what he knew now, he wouldn't have done it any differently.

"So what should we do now?" she asked, drumming her fingers against his chest.

He picked up her hand in his, he grazing his thumb across her fingers. "Whatever the hell we want," he replied, not willing to go to sleep just yet.

She squealed excitedly and crawled on top of him, kissing him. Clearly neither one of them planned on getting any rest tonight.

...

A month later, Clarke caught the bouquet at Octavia's wedding. A year after that, she was the one throwing it.

THE END


End file.
